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Eight practical actions procurement can take to move closer to net zero targets

Net Zero Targets

At PASA’s recent Sustainable Procurement & ESG Today event, Edge Impact’s Tanya Harris (Head of Sustainable and Ethical Procurement) and Dr Daniel Rojas (Principal Consultant, Decarbonisation and Climate Resilience) highlighted the practical and meaningful actions that organisations can take to move closer to net zero targets.

This is particularly important given the recent State of the Climate Report by the World Resources Institute, which shows overall progress isn’t happening at anywhere near the pace and scale necessary to combat the climate crisis.

To get on track for 2030, it reveals the world needs to:

  • Decrease the energy intensity of building operations three times faster
  • Decarbonise cement production more than 10 times faster
  • Lower the carbon intensity of steel production more than 10 times faster

So, what can procurement do to get ahead?

Edge Impact’s hour-long presentation revealed eight key takeaways, including:

  1. The time to get started is immediately. Procurement doesn’t need to wait when the perfect time is right here and now. Remember: progress over perfection. Don’t wait until you’ve got it right
  2. Start small, building maturity and knowledge as you go, while ensuring you engage with others to build your own confidence as you start to understand and evaluate what good looks like
  3. Focus on relationships both internally and within supply chains, then refine systems and processes as you learn
  4. Pilot, but make sure you evaluate the outcomes of your pilot to be able to build and integrate continuous improvement into your internal implementation
  5. Harness the power of procurement and its ability to drive positive change when it comes to supply chain engagement and making material impacts of decarbonisation
  6. Don’t think you need to have all the answers. Engage suppliers to come up with potential solutions for decarbonisation within the competitive process. Your key objectives around decarbonisation are a business and commercial sales opportunity for your suppliers. Remember: it’s within their best interests to be able to meet your requirements
  7. You’re not alone in this journey. Stand on the shoulders of those that have come before you – leverage the experience of others. Employ desktop research, particularly in Australia. There are many examples. Reach out and ask for information which you can then leverage within your own internal practice
  8. Consider cost sharing models – partnerships can start with co-funding

Ultimately, remember that decarbonisation takes time. Edge Impact suggests that while this is the decade of action and implementation needs to speed up, a big bang approach isn’t recommended. 

Instead, what’s important is practicality around internal effort and focusing on the high impact decarbonisation opportunities within your categories and portfolios, and then honing in on those.

Different modes of procurement effort were also highlighted during the presentation, with a focus on being open, honest and transparent to suppliers about where your organisation is and letting them know that they are a critical component to achieving targets while communicating what’s in it for them.

Did you miss out on this year’s Sustainable Procurement & ESG Today event?

Next year’s Sustainable Procurement & ESG Conference will take place online on 30th & 31st July. Watch this space for further info!