Six Barriers To Sustainable Procurement (And How To Overcome Them)
As businesses around the world are making steps towards Net Zero, only 1 in 2 have a sustainable procurement process in place.
While sustainable sourcing might not be at the top of everyone's to-do list, it reduces long term business costs by 5-10%, while increasing brand value by 15-30%.
But, as we move closer to a zero-emission world, the reality is sustainable sourcing isn’t something that your business could do. It’s something it needs to do in order to comply with governmental regulations and current & emerging legislation.
Although it may feel too late to make steps towards a net-zero supply chain, businesses starting to transition their supply chains now have rare insights from other companies that are already well on their journey.
To help your business make the first steps into sustainable procurement, here’s six barriers and how to overcome them.
1. Get Buy-in from Senior Employees.
A lot of businesses have an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality.
This can often radiate into senior leadership teams, who, if they don’t believe something should be changed, may shy away from it. Although there’s more and more legislation being put in place to help businesses reduce their carbon emissions, some businesses may shy away from making changes until they need to.
To help your business overcome this barrier to sustainable procurement, you can work on a business case.
It’s your job to turn doubters into believers. And the best way to do that is through data.
With information gathered from the latest white papers, an understanding of different suppliers, and ideas, strategies & solutions from your wider network, you can achieve buy-in based on cold, hard data and real-life case studies.
2. Not enough Support from Suppliers.
Just because you’ve used a supplier for a long time and have a lasting relationship, it doesn’t mean that they’re doing all they can to support you.
With new sustainability regulations being brought forward every quarter, it’s likely that your business’ goals are changing. And, depending on how your suppliers operate, their goals may not be.
For example, businesses often find it extremely difficult to get Scope 3 information on hired or bought goods from their suppliers. This is especially true for SMEs, who can find it difficult to gain the necessary buy-in from their supply chain to create well-rounded sustainability reports and, therefore, have a clear overview of their carbon emissions.
Although finding suppliers that meet your criteria can be difficult – it’s not impossible.
Therefore, to overcome this barrier to sustainable procurement, it’s important to thoroughly question your network both before and after they become a supplier.
Alternatively, you could also focus on working with a third-party supplier. A good provider will communicate directly with large suppliers on your behalf, collecting all the data and information you need. As they’re brand-agnostic, a good supplier would focus on the quality of the products, rather than who made it.
On HSS ProService Marketplace, all products have been hand-chosen with sustainability in mind. With a range of hybrid and low emission products, simply search for your favourite kit, and greener alternatives will be presented at checkout.
To find out more about the marketplace, and benefits, book a no-obligation demo with a member of our team today.
3. Limited Time and Resources.
We’ve all heard the phrase ‘time is money’, but as your to-do list grows longer and longer, figuring out what to prioritise and focus on can be challenging.
This is especially true with ever-changing sustainability legislation, as the core equipment you once used may emit a significant amount of carbon while in use, or come from a far-away depot. The reality is, the time you’re wasting researching new products or legislating changes, the more time you spend away from your core set of tasks.
While once it may have been useful to have multiple vendors at your discretion, with dynamic rates and different equipment, this may now be a hindrance to your operations.
Likewise, in order to prove to governing bodies that you’re taking significant steps as a business to minimise carbon emissions, it’s likely that you’re spending a significant amount of time building reports. These reports will be increasing your admin, and decreasing time you can spend making real changes to your carbon emissions. This is especially true if your supplier is not upfront about how many carbon emissions their products emit per hour.
To overcome this barrier to sustainable procurement, it’s vital to find a supply chain solution that can minimise internal administration.
A good supplier should have an online directory, with up-to-date emissions per hour per product. This won’t just streamline your procurement process, as it will be easy to understand how carbon efficient each product is at a glance, but also help lower your emissions in a real, practical way.
Similarly, they should also find a way to easily show or build customer carbon reports. This helps overcome significant barriers to sustainable procurement while saving you hundreds of hours of administration time per year, understanding what products are higher emitters, and creating reports based on your real data.
4. Potential Higher Costs.
One common barrier to sustainable procurement is that lower emission solutions have had traditionally higher upfront costs, which has put a significant amount of businesses off making the switch.
These upfront costs are often due to:
- Higher costs associated with the sourcing and development of more eco-friendly materials.
- The extensive supplier selection and vetting processes.
- Compliance with certifications and standards.
One way to overcome this is by adopting a phased approach to procurement.
Instead of switching to entirely environmentally friendly equipment or building materials, slowly make the changes in your business. Not only will this lessen the initial cost, but it will help your team regain a sense of normalcy while you make changes.
On the HSS ProService Marketplace, you can have complete oversight into overall, site, and user spend, as well as the carbon emissions of your procurement process through our specialised insights dashboards.
To find out more, book a free, no-obligation demo with our team today.
5. Investing in the Wrong Technology.
With the rise of AI in the last five years, more and more businesses are keen to find a Software as a Solution (SaaS) company to help them streamline business needs.
Due to a significant amount of businesses or solutions being in their infancy, it’s difficult to understand which solution will benefit your business.
For example, investing in the wrong technology could lead to higher overall costs with limited ROI, integration, and compatibility issues with existing processes, and inadequate scalability as your business grows or develops.
However, this barrier to sustainable procurement is easily overcome through needs testing.
By understanding how current processes function for their teams, their efficiency, and how futureproof they are allows you to understand the gaps in your current procurement processes.
Then, this allows you to understand the needs that technology could fill.
For example, one barrier you have could be a lack of real time supplier data for sustainable products, meaning your team is more likely to choose a higher emitting product that they know is in stock. Therefore, it could be beneficial to seek a technology solution that provides real-time stock updates, such as the HSS ProService Marketplace.
Having a checklist of needs, wants, and nice-to-haves will allow you to find a sustainable technology solution that works today, tomorrow, and for years to come.
6. Training and Education.
One common barrier to sustainable procurement, as with any new process, is internal uptake.
Whether you’re a member of the senior leadership team, or are in a position or authority, while you may see the need for change, if you don’t have buy-in on an operational level, your efforts may be wasted.
We’re all creatures of habit. And when choosing a new sustainability solution, it’s vital to ask:
- Who is using the process?
- How easy is your solution to use?
- How different will your new process be compared to your existing infrastructure?
If your answers show that the solution you may choose will be significantly different from existing processes, it’s key to either re-think your option, or ensure that the supplier offers a range of training.
To drive operational change, it may also be key to consider having sustainability champions within your teams.
Ideally, these should be people who are both passionate about sustainability and are keen to make changes to their role to accommodate for this. By showing them your new procurement method early, or having them be a user tester, this allows them to help other members of staff make positive changes day-to-day. Then, if there are any significant barriers your team is facing, their champion can try to resolve them before going to you.
HSS ProService Marketplace was built with people in mind. With intuitive and easy-to-use interface, we pride the marketplace on working for your teams - not against it. However, if you do run into any issues, we can support with hands on training and insight.
To find out more about the HSS ProService Marketplace, get in touch with a member of our team by booking our free, no-obligation demo now.
Overcoming the Barriers To Sustainable Procurement.
Although these are six barriers to sustainable procurement that your business needs to overcome, there are lots of other considerations that will be bespoke to your business needs.
However, being prepared and informed on common barriers, such as the ones mentioned in this article, can help your business prepare for the future.
When choosing a sustainable procurement solution, it’s vital to find one that gives you hybrid or low carbon product alternatives and the reporting tools to understand where you can make operational change.
That’s why, on the HSS ProService Marketplace, we offer greener product alternatives at the point of order. Our customers find that this allows the end-users to decide a piece of equipment or building material that will work for them, not what someone in the head office thinks will work. By giving them the autonomy to make their own decisions, people will often select the more eco-friendly option.
Similarly, we added the sustainability insights dashboard into all accounts. This gives everyone, whether you’re working at an SME or Enterprise organisation, the data to understand how their sustainable choices are affecting their carbon output. Including all Scope 1, 2 & 3 data, this dashboard provides you with a holistic view of your current state of play, what your biggest carbon emitters are, and provides you with the data to make the right next steps for your business.
Whatever solution your business decides, it’s always important to consider the future, and longevity of your technology. As, without the right data-driven insights, your business may not hit its net-zero goals in time.
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To find out more about our free-to-access marketplace, book a free demo with a member of our team today.
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