“ A very small vendor where you spend only about a $ 100,000 a month , might end up , if something went wrong , damaging your brand much more than what will happen with IBM or Accenture ”
– Pierre Francois Thaler , EcoVadis Chief Executive and Co-Founder , EcoVadis
EcoVadis analyses hundreds of differ also linked to taking sustainability into account ,” says Thaler . “ One of the mismatches in many companies is that they say they now have a corporate mandate for sustainable procurement , but at the same time the purchasing managers were 100 % incentivised and 100 % driven just to deliver short-term cost savings .”
EcoVadis also surveyed suppliers to learn what they think of their customers ’ sustainable procurement programs . Many complained that while customers were demanding much more information , they were not following up on what was provided , also failing to offer adequate incentives for the suppliers to change .
“ It ’ s difficult to measure whether you ’ ve really covered risks . Some companies would say ‘ we cover 80 % of our spend ’, but that 80 % might just be from a large handful of suppliers with no risks ,” says Thaler .
“ Others might say ‘ we cover 80 percent of what we consider high risk suppliers ’, but that ’ s a subjective exercise and they might only give ‘ high risk ’ to suppliers
30 October 2017