Best-in-class sustainable procurement programme

A big part of running a sustainable business is managing your value chain and your suppliers. Solar is committed to sourcing sustainable products for our customers, while supporting the green transition and protecting human rights. According to the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the Norwegian Transparency Act, companies need to perform due diligence and report on supplier base issues within certain areas. Solar has invested vast resources in organizational and process changes to meet and exceed the requirements. Katarina Jönsson, Head of Sustainable Procurement in Solar, explains: “In July 2022, the Norwegian Transparency Act came into force meaning that our Norwegian entity was first out with these new requirements. Simultaneously, we have implemented all the new processes in all Solar countries to be in great shape when the EU directives on due diligence comes into force.”

Solar Supplier Engagement Programme

This is why we have created Solar’s Supplier Engagement Programme. We are dedicated to performing legally correct, sustainable and ethical business practices and hold our 4,000 suppliers to the same high standards.

Our Supplier Engagement Programme contains several parts. One of them is the partnership with EcoVadis, providing - among other things - the tool that supports three initiatives: Firstly, we perform risk assessment of our suppliers on the four pillars: human rights, environment, ethics and sustainable procurement. Secondly, we are working actively with the suppliers on corrective actions and processes. And thirdly, we are reducing CO2e emissions in the supply chains through active supplier collaboration.

Our sustainable procurement work is rooted in our supplier code of conduct, giving our customers the security of safe working conditions in our supply chains and getting their products from responsible and ethical businesses with respect for human rights and the environment. Suppliers representing 93% of our spend have so far signed our code of conduct.

Exceeding the requirements

Katarina Jönsson says: “Through our programme, we collaborate with our suppliers to protect human rights and to lower CO2e emissions by reducing carbon footprint on product level and progressively switching to renewable energy. We started our preparation work in 2020, following the dawn of CSDDD and the Norwegian Transparency Act, and now have a programme valid for the entire Solar Group and that we are proud of. Our ambition is to have a best-in-class sustainable procurement programme. Once incorporated in the programme tool, we can collaborate with our suppliers to increase their sustainability maturity in all the four areas: Human rights, ethics, environment and their own sustainable procurement practice. We assign a number of training sessions to them and ask them to report on their CO2e emissions in order to evaluate progress”.

Katarina Jönsson continues: “From time to time, it is challenging to onboard suppliers that are not subject to the legislations themselves, due to geography or size. However when they understand the value and benefits from sharing the supply chain data and grow their sustainability maturity with us, they join the programme and strive to improve year on year. We have several success stories on suppliers growing their score and maturity remarkably year on year. And this is exactly what we hoped for and are working to achieve.”

Together with EcoVadis, a leading intelligence sustainability platform for global supply chains, Solar performs risk assessments and establishes due diligence procedures within its supplier base. So far, 78% of our spend is risk assessed.

Katarina concludes: “Being compliant with legislation and exceeding market demands is ongoing work, and we are serious about this. We want to be the obvious choice for our customers, where they can feel safe, as we ensure a sustainable, compliant supplier portfolio for them to choose from, and they can focus on their core business.”