Sustainability Assessment for Procurement

Have you ever thought about how huge an impact an organisation or a company has on the world through its procurement measures?

The impact may harm the world’s sustainable development or support it, depending on one’s supply chain. Severe environmental concerns may occur, unfair trade is possible, natural resources may be threatened, or social acceptance of some parties may be disregarded. The organization or the company responsible for the purchased items may not be aware of all this. It may, for example, invest its resources in R&D when looking for sustainable solutions or not pay enough attention to how its supply chains affect the development of some parts of the world.

As sustainability is at the heart of AFRY's operations, we want to help our customers achieve their sustainability goals. With AFRY’s Sustainability Assessment for Procurement (SUSAP), our experts can support the selection of suppliers and equipment more holistically and ensure that the procurement decision aligns with our customer's responsibility goals.

Evaluating the sustainability performance of suppliers

Choosing suppliers and making investments are essential parts of a project. When selecting a potential supplier and the equipment, evaluation is often made based only on economic and technical factors. Assessing the sustainability of products can be challenging, as offerings may vary greatly between tenders. In order to choose the most sustainable options, it is important to evaluate the sustainability of the products from a life-cycle perspective.

AFRY’s Sustainability Assessment for Procurement helps to make a decision based on sustainability criteria with a variety of different aspects. It also contributes to the implementation of the sustainability work in your organization’s strategy. The assessment evaluates the performance of comparable suppliers from a sustainable perspective and contributes in particular to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:

AFRY’s systematic evaluating procedure for procurement

AFRY has developed a systematic procedure for evaluating the sustainability of different options when making procurement decisions. We provide professional help for organizations to make the best possible choices in the procurement. This can be a separate service or a part of an investment project in an agreed scale. AFRY’s Sustainability Assessment for Procurement does not only evaluate the suppliers at the company level. It also assesses the options at the equipment level in accordance with the Ecodesign requirements and standard ISO 14040 “ISO 14040:2006 Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Principles and framework”.

AFRY’s Sustainability Assessment for Procurement offers comprehensive evaluation of potential suppliers and equipment with selected sustainability criteria from economic, environmental and social aspects. Compared to a standard technical evaluation, the sustainability assessment gives broader perspective when making investments.

Challenges in evaluating sustainability of equipment?

The Sustainability Assessment of Procurement helps the customer to choose the best equipment from the sustainability point of view. It indicates, for example, if the manufacturing of the equipment does not use critical natural resources or that the device or its components can be used at the end of its service life. In this way, AFRY’s sustainability assessment tool gives an added value by taking into account the factors that are critical to social, economic and environmental responsibility. Criteria can be customized to highlight the values that have high importance to the client.

The most comprehensive view with sustainability assessment

Once the required equipment has been defined, the client-specific approach is applied to the sustainability evaluation of parallel options. Starting from raw materials, finishing to the disposal of the product, including all the steps in between. Data is collected both from suppliers through a questionnaire and by obtaining available public information. After receiving data, the options are rated based on the answers on their current status and willingness to develop their sustainability performance. Together with technical comparison, the sustainability assessment gives a comprehensive view that helps to make the most suitable and sustainable decision for the project. As a result, the assessment highlights possible critical findings in a visual report and gives recommendations of the most suitable equipment and supplier.

Below is presented the criteria included in the evaluation.