We’re thrilled to announce the completion of our Sustainable Supply Chain Pilot which ran from March to September this year with two anchor clients and 16 suppliers.

A Success Story

When we launched the pilot, it was with a view to helping manufacturing and construction companies who often face huge challenges getting their suppliers (especially SMEs) to engage with sustainability. Our initial research confirmed that this isn’t down to a lack of willingness, it’s a lack of resources and time.

That’s where the cluster approach in our pilot proved essential.

Working together, we helped suppliers to stop reacting to sustainability and start taking measured action. We helped them to bridge the gap by providing them with targeted support and resources, including:

• Data & Measurement: We provided hands on support through access to the Climate Essentials platform, a vital step since the vast majority of suppliers weren’t formally tracking their Scope 1 and 2 emissions. This directly translated into tangible data that fed upstream into the Scope 3 emissions for our anchor clients, Dowds Group & Heron Joinery.  
• Formal Foundations: We developed procurement templates (policies, codes of conduct, questionnaires, and weighting tools) that directly filled the critical gaps in formal governance structures for some cluster members.
• Social Value: Virtual workshops along with guidance tools to measure, report and validate efforts, equipped suppliers with the knowledge to identify, develop, and demonstrate their social impact, directly aligning with client expectations during tendering.

What’s Next: Scaling the Cluster Model

The key takeaway from this pilot is that the cluster approach is the right model for achieving collective impact. The success of the program in giving suppliers of all sizes the tools to formalise their ESG efforts, has given us a clear framework for future clusters.

The appetite for this is growing, and we’ve already consolidated all our learnings and resources into a comprehensive Supply Chain Sustainability Handbook. We are now ready to refine this proven model and roll it out to more client companies looking to tackle their supply chain sustainability, develop their Scope 3 emissions and social value commitments.

We are committed to helping businesses tackle the big challenges in sustainability, from decarbonisation and net zero to material efficiency and the circular economy. And we believe the cluster model is the most effective way to do it.

So if this sounds like something your business could benefit from, we’d love to explore how we can help you turn this challenge into a collective success story for you and your suppliers. Contact us directly to discuss.