News
Monday 15. February 2010
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| Study on Sustainable Procurement |
| Changing customer demands are forcing companies to also take into account the topics of ecology and social standards in company procurement. |
| Even today, ecological standards in purchasing are not a subject for 41 percent of those responsible for purchasing and procurement in the producing industry; and for one quarter of them, social standards in purchasing also still play no part as yet. Although 34 percent of the 202 companies interviewed in a current study – conducted by the Kerkhoff Competence Center of Supply Chain Management (KCC) at the University of St. Gallen and by the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach – declared that compliance with ecological and social standards had resulted in competitive advantages. Change is expected, however. Thus, 69 percent of the participants in the study expect that sustainability in procurement will become yet more important in the future. Those interviewed described the most important future trends as follows: Preservation of natural resources (25 percent); use of alternative sources of energy (16 percent), as well as clean production (twelve percent). Also, seven percent of them already think about how to make their logistics areas more environmentally compatible. "In the future, industrial buyers will evaluate products no longer only according to the triangle of price, quality and service but will expand it to a quadrangle in which sustainability will become an important factor in the evaluation", Gundula Jäger is convinced of it. She is the General Manager of Kerkhoff Austria and further states: "In the year 2020, purchasing managers will review the entire supply chain for sustainability; they will thus become environmental managers who must establish ratios as to which cost benefits will result due to sustainable action." |
