Our journey, your way

Sustainable Procurement
When you look at the future, one of the definitions of a high performance company is going to be how well it embraces a sustainability agenda
Bill Green, Chairman & CEO, Accenture

Business Challenge
Businesses are under increasing pressure from multiple forces to become more sustainable and costcompetitive. The drivers include an increasing focus on social and behavioural responsibility, as well as economic, political and regulatory pressures. High performing companies are finding ways to leverage sustainability for competitive advantage as well as to improve their corporate responsibility. With the focus on costs and financial stability greater than ever, leading organisations are using eco-efficiency and supplier inclusion to drive cost savings through the supply chain. The benefits of these initiatives - which include short and long-term cost savings, security of supply and risk mitigation - are of crucial importance in how an organisation purchases products and services, so business leaders are increasingly aware of the cost of not taking action. Clients across all sectors also have increased expectations and with sustainability featuring in C-suite conversations, business leaders must ensure they not only speak the language but also understand the issues and respond. These expectations are increasingly reflected in requests for tender and a companys sustainability position now plays a crucial role in the success of these bids. Add to this the war for talent and the importance of corporate social responsibility to both employees and graduates and it is imperative that organisations are proactive. This means they need to review their

current business agenda and determine their strategy to embed sustainability.

Accentures Response
Sustainability brings environmental, social and ethical considerations to the forefront of operational strategy. Accenture is a signatory organisation of the United Nations Global Compact, which asks companies to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set of core values in four key areas: human rights, labour standards, the environment, and anti-corruption. Accenture is committed to embedding these values in all parts of the business, which, for procurement, means integrating progressively higher standards of ethics and sustainability into the purchasing of services and products throughout our organisation. Procuring ethically, responsibly and in a sustainable way is also part of Accentures commitment to Corporate Citizenship and our identity in the marketplace. We are striving to shape the market and make a substantive difference to the way people in the UK - and beyond - work and live through our impact on our clients, our people and our suppliers. A strong sustainable procurement programme not only benefits Accenture but also our clients, realising benefits such as service level gains through increased operational effectiveness and financial benefits associated with more sustainable solutions. This means understanding, monitoring and raising sustainability performance of our own operations through our key supplier relationships.

Change within Accenture

Having an established position on sustainable procurement, it is important to raise awareness and engagement of our procurement professionals and commodity leads whose involvement is paramount for the ongoing success of the programme. We worked to develop a network of mutually supportive relationships both internally across workforces and teams, and externally with clients, peers and nongovernmental organisations. For example, we are engaged with the WEConnect (Women in Enterprise Connecting to contracts); MSDUK (Minority Supplier Development UK) and SDE (Supplier Diversity Europe) to accelerate the progress of our supplier inclusion and diversity initiatives, which enable Accenture to leverage new, more competitive and innovative supply sources. Our commitment to change was then institutionalized through our procurement professionals performance being evaluated against sustainability objectives and goals, such as, inclusion of sustainability factors in weighted decision making ahead of supplier selection. Across the rest of the UK workforce, the Sustainable Procurement Programme is supported with written standards and procedures, training and communications, visible reinforcement from senior leadership to ensure it features as an integral part of the business agenda.

Finally, in order to ensure our ethical and environmental policies are covered, we have recently updated our contracts to require suppliers to cooperate with our commitment to the United Nations Global Compact. Some suppliers are also required to report against metrics and targets relating to sustainability. This has driven improvements across our key stakeholder areas with a good number of suppliers proactively demonstrating progress on environmental performance, which has contributed to our being awarded the ISO14001 environmental certification, and to the implementation of initiatives such as online billing, saving cost as well as paper. Going forward the inclusion of our sustainability requirements in our procurement contracts and our requests for proposals to suppliers is integral to the continuing success and growth of our sustainable procurement.

In addition, with our encouragement, we have seen some significant supplier achievements such as: ur supplier of corporate housing O implemented initiatives to reduce negative environmental impacts. Energy was switched to renewable sources, energy saving light bulbs reduced consumption by 40%, and water consumption was reduced by 30%. e implemented paperless billing in W partnership with Accentures largest travel agency supplier. This is now at 40% adoption. uring FY08 we switched to paperless D timesheets for 26 contractor agencies, generating an annual saving of approximately 16,000 sheets of paper. ccentures implementation of Cisco A Telepresence has saved 1791 tonnes of CO2 and millions of dollars globally.

High Performance Delivered

In the last 12 months Accentures UKI Sustainable Procurement programme delivered the following, a substantial platform to taking our program to new levels over the next year and beyond: o development of methodologies and a tool kit incorporating supplier segmentation, screening, and reporting. he Sustainable Procurement T programme contributed to Accenture UKI obtaining Platinum status in the Business In The Community Companies that Count Index ccenture achieved IS014001 A environmental certification for the Fenchurch Street office and we are working towards a global certification. ccenture was invited to present A on internal & external sustainable supply chain activities as a role model organisation in the high profile Responsible Procurement Conference hosted by a key client. he UKI Sustainable Procurement team T are using their own experiences and tools to help advise our clients emonstration of our sustainable D procurement programme to a key client helped to further strengthen our position as a high performing supplier he UKI Sustainable Procurement T professionals are active participants in corporate membership organisations WEConnect (active board member), MSD-UK & Supplier Diversity Europe.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the worlds most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With more than 186,000 people serving clients in over 120 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$23.39 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2008. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

Building sustainable relationships with suppliers

A major focus for the programme is reporting on the number and value of key supplier relationships screened for sustainability standards, which are subject to improvement initiatives. In order to achieve this, a collaborative team across business functions agreed which supplier relationships to include via a new risk and opportunity assessment process. This risk and opportunity assessment involves considering the strategic importance of the service or product against the likelihood of it contravening our core values. Suppliers identified as high priority are required to advise on how they reduce and manage sustainability risks, and optimise opportunities. This process enables Accenture to prioritise areas for attention and improvement within the ongoing management and development of the supplier relationship. Accenture has seen a positive response to this approach and has learnt a great deal about supplier initiatives that enable them to reduce the social, environmental and ethical impacts of their businesses.

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