2019 European Launch of CDP Global Supply Chain Report hosted by Barclay at their Canary Wharf Headquarters took place on February 28th 2019. CDP also took this chance to celebrate of CDP supply chain.
Prof Skea, Co-chair of IPCC, showed how urgent it is to take action. Carbon emission needs to fall by half by 2030 to stop global warming by 1.5 degrees. It seems that we have to change fast enough to tackle global warming, but how can we make a significant effect?
Paul Simpson briefed the power of procurement to drive environmental disclosure at scale. He also called out Walmart and Tesco for helping kick off supply chain engagement a decade ago, when climate change had not become the hottest issue.
Sonya Bhonsis, Global Head of Supply Chain of CDP demonstrated the achievement of CDP in the previous decade and showed the cascading effect of the CDP programme. Now they have 115 members and representing 3.3 trillion USD in procurement spend. As their data shows, over 1/3 of suppliers are driving upstream change in their supply chain, while nearly 3/4 of CDP supply chain members expect to choose suppliers based on environmental performance.
During CPO panel, the leaders have proven there’s been a significant shift for the previous decade. They currently demanding more from their suppliers and sharing their stories of the process. However, their motivations are split between authentic purpose, economic savings and PR.
Boet Brinkgreve, Chief Supply Chain Officer of Firmenich, emphasised the importance of engaging the supply chain to tackle climate change. They ask all the suppliers to be “good suppliers” otherwise those “not good” are not going to sell to Firmenich.
After the break, Rhian-Mari Thomas, Managing Director of Barclay’s presented their goal — reducing 90% carbon emission from 2018–2030, and to use 100% renewable energy by 2030. It would be a very great work as Barclay’s has over 4,750 branches in about 55 countries. Barclay’s is confident with this ambitious target.
Then, the investor panel underlined the importance of corporate governance to act on climate and suggests linking these acts to CEOs’ strategic planning. Very great insight is given by the panel discussion:
“Increasingly, our clients are saying to us, ‘are you investing in the solution? Or are you investing in the problem?’ Disclosure is important because it shows us where you are on the journey”, said Anita McBain, head of responsible investment and ESG at M&G.
This implies the significance of transparency.
Eventually. the event finished with a closing keynote given by Nigel Topping CEO of We Mean Business. The speech was short but powerful.
“The transition to the low-carbon economy is inevitable…If you’re not ahead of the curve, in your ambition and action on climate change, you’re are planning to be behind the curve.”
Now, it’s time to stop up and encourage the supply chain for taking action on climate action. We are at the stage that companies starting willing to engage in carbon disclosure. 5,545 out of 11,692 businesses responded to the disclosure request and 64% of the responding companies engage in carbon reduction (CDP, 2019). We can go beyond simply asking for disclosure and moving forward to positive impacts. With cascading effect the impact can be massively enlarged. Thus, there is a need to disclose the supply chain transparently. With blockchain technology, businesses and even end users are able to trace all the action throughout the supply chain. With transparency, improvement and achievement can be easily justified rather than voluntarily disclosure. The importance of transparency will be discussed in our next article….
Reference:
CDP (2019) Cascading Commitments: Driving ambitious action through supply chain engagement.
