Certify your Suppliers

What proportion of your revenue goes towards paying suppliers? For example, a typical organisation buys/pays $70, add value of $30 and sells at $100. So out of $100 revenue generated, it spends $70, so 70% of revenue. So if you make your organisation sustainable internally, then you can address 30% issues (where you add value) out of 100% issues. So to make your organisation fully sustainable, you will have to address 70% of issues which are being imported into your organisation. That means the organisation needs to extend support to procurement team to meet overall sustainability goals. This can help you move towards 100% sustainability goal.

We may be able to address far more problems than what we have mentioned below:

1. You may have to create, amend and manage a sustainability system/process if you do it yourself. We will save you time and investment required to create, change and manage sustainability system/process.
2. Imagine you have 500+ suppliers. You will need skilled manpower to manage sustainability assessment yourself. By hiring us, you can focus on your day to day procurement function, while staying away from hiring, training and monitoring your workforce on sustainability assessment. So you save on time, energy as well as cost.
3. Stakeholder may have limited confidence in in-house non-core activities like sustainability assessments. By hiring a 3^rd party sustainability assessor, your stakeholders can be assured that it has done by the 3^rd party expert.
4. You may find it difficult to create the right level (depth and breadth) of assessment and certification for each supplier based on their profile and your supplier relationship strategy. We have various assessment products, which can help meet different assessment levels (depth and breadth) for different supplier relationships.
5. Imagine a large global organization, with suppliers around the globe. Your procurement team may not know all languages to deal with all assessments. We can take care of your limitation on language.
6. Imagine a procurement personnel sitting in the UK and trying to assess supplier in Thailand or India or China. It is difficult for your global procurement team to know and remember all local sustainability risks and challenges to be addressed. We can do it better, as we review local laws, directives, risks, etc on regular basis.
7. Imagine 500+ suppliers, and each has 3 sites. So it would add more difficultly in terms of time commitment required by your team. We can deliver this challenge for you, or you can hire a temporary staff through us.
8. There are so many components of sustainability, so more information adds confusion rather than creating a solution. We can easily design assessment based on
   1. your customer’s requirement,
   2. your values,
   3. your corporate strategy and
   4. your supply chain department vision.
9. You can avoid costs, if we have already have assessed your supplier. This may save you cost as well as time.
10. Speed of assessment depends on your core skills. Most of the procurement team’s core skills do not cover all aspects of sustainability. We can address the expectation on speed and skills gap.
11. Imagine you have capacity, capability and time to do sustainability assessment of your 500+ suppliers. You will then collect and store data to carry out assessment. So data related risk is with your organization. By hiring us, you transfer that risk to us. We have a unique process to assess your supplier without transfer of data, so everyone’s risk is significantly minimized.

(https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/company-disclosure-requirements-under-the-2015-modern-slavery-act)

The answer is yes. We have a specific assessment focused on UK – Modern Slavery Act 2015.

It takes care of following criteria expected by the UK government:

1. due diligence process,
2. risk assessment,
3. risk management and
4. effectiveness

The Act applies to all organisations with a turnover, or group turnover – that is, the total turnover of a company and its subsidiaries – of £36 million or more which are either incorporated in the UK or carry on a business in the UK.

Commercial organisations subject to the 2015 Modern Slavery Act (‘the Act’) must report annually on the steps that they have taken during the financial year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not taking place in their own business or in their supply chains.

The answer is yes. We can have a specific assessment focused on the USA–Dodd Frank Act 2010.

It takes care of following criteria expected by the USA government:

1. due diligence process,
2. risk assessment & management

The “conflict minerals” provision—commonly known as Section 1502 of the Dodd Frank Act—requires U.S. publicly-listed companies to check their supply chains for tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold, if they might originate in Congo or its neighbours, take steps to address any risks they find, and to report on their efforts every year to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Companies are not encouraged to stop sourcing from this region, but are required to show they are working with the appropriate care—what is now known as “due diligence”—to make sure they are not funding armed groups or human rights abuses.

The answer is yes. We can have an assessment focused on the EU Conflict Mineral Regulation 2021.

It takes care of following criteria expected by the European Union:

1. due diligence process,
2. risk assessment & management

The answer is yes. We can have an assessment focused on the OECD Due Diligence Guidance.

It takes care of following criteria expected by the European Union:

1. due diligence process,
2. risk assessment & management

Yes, it addresses following problems of your supplier:

1. Once assessed, the supplier can share this assessment certificate with other companies (if you and supplier agree). This may enable you to share cost with your supplier.
2. It may let your supplier gain business from the public sector, as most governments have added sustainability criteria into purchasing decisions.
3. Your supplier may be able to become supplier or win business from large companies, as 97% of the procurement organizations surveyed consider sustainability/CSR important for procurement decision. https://www.hec.edu/en/news-room/state-sustainable-procurement-latest-ecovadis/hec-paris-barometer-released
4. Your supplier may have an upper hand in competing with other suppliers to enhance their business. US Dodd-Frank Act, UK Modern Slavery Act and EU Conflict Mineral Regulation are driving companies to assess their supplier’s sustainability credentials.
5. Your supplier may be able to attract more consumers. As per Forbes – 88% of the consumers want companies to help them make a difference. https://www.forbes.com/sites/solitairetownsend/2018/11/21/consumers-want-you-to-help-them-make-a-difference/?sh=63b431896954
6. Your supplier may be able to address the fast growing expectation on environmentally-friendly, ethical and healthy alternatives. BBC – COVID-19 and sustainability. – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55630144
7. You can drive financial outperformance. Oxford University –
   https://arabesque.com/research/From_the_stockholder_to_the_stakeholder_web.pdf
8. You can uplift revenue of 5-20%, reduce cost by 9-16% and increase brand value by 15-30%. World Economic Forum – http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEFUSA_BeyondSupplyChains_Report2015.pdf

Any 3^rd party sustainability certification should provide more assurance to your customer, client, shareholder, society, community, supplier, etc. This should directly improve your organizational credibility and brand image. We have listed benefits of sustainability on following link https://iso20400.1spsc.org/benefits/. The list is compiled from various well-known and respected sources mentioned before the benefits.

1. Social
2. Environmental
3. Ethics
4. Health & Safety
5. Governance
6. Culture, Heritage & Values
7. Technology
8. Legal
9. Economic
10. Procurement
11. Supply Chain
12. Conflict Minerals
13. UK Modern Slavery Act 2015
14. USA Dodd-Frank Act 2010
15. EU Conflict Mineral Regulation 2021

We have defined five levels of assessment based on the depth of assessment. This is to meet organizational needs.

• Bronze – Desktop Verification
• Silver – Desktop + Virtual Verification
• Gold – Extended Desktop + Extended Virtual Verification
• Platinum – Extended Desktop + Extended Virtual + Physical Verification
• Diamond – Extended Desktop + Extended Virtual + Physical + Surprise Virtual Verification + Surprise Physical Verification

Secondly, for Silver, we follow at least 2 data check point methodology. For Gold, Platinum & Diamond levels, we follow 3 data check point methodology, which may go up to 5 data check point methodology. This demonstrates the depth of the process.

Thirdly, for silver, we follow at least 2 criteria from policy, process and performance. For Gold, Platinum & Diamond levels, we check on all three criteria of policy, process and performance, which demonstrate the breadth of the process.

The answer is yes. The cost can be shared between you and your supplier. Our organisation segregation is as follow:

• Micro – up to 10 employees
• Small – 11 to 100 employees
• Medium – 101 to 1000 employees
• Large – 1000+ employees

Yes, you do get a certificate. The certificate will mention:

1. Name of organization
2. Level of assessment
3. Sustainability Aspects covered in the assessment
4. Certificate level
5. Certified sustainability aspects
6. Certificate issued date
7. Certificate revision date
8. Certificate validity date
9. Assessed site locations
10. QR Code for verifiability

Certificate code and QR code on the certificate can be used to easily verify the validity of the certificate.

The answer is yes as well as no. Organisation may be issued a separate permission to use appropriate céleste sub-logo, if they meet at least 5 sustainability criteria from our ethical, social and environmental criteria. Organisation will have to submit an application for sub-logo usage after getting certified. The application link is https://iso20400.1spsc.org/logo-license-tc/

After issue of permission, the certified organization can use issued céleste sub-logo freely on if entire organization is certified. For partially certified organization, there will be some restrictions on céleste sub-logo usage

1. Marketing communications
2. Social Media
3. Email signature
4. Packaging
5. Website
6. Business premises owned/operated

Certificate is valid for 1 year, and the sub-logo usage validity will be same as the issued certificate.