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When using UK-based suppliers, it is easy to assume you are not using materials produced unethically or at the expense of the environment. We have robust health and safety laws, generally contractor websites will have a Modern Slavery Statement, and many companies are conscious of their ecological and carbon footprints (at least publicly).
However, datasets and standard methodologies to support claims of responsible supply chains are not widely available. Worst of all, we know that there is hidden misery in our supply chains.
At SHIFT, we aim to assess the percentage of responsibly sourced materials used by UK social landlords within their repairs and maintenance activities. There are exceptions, but generally landlords provide few responses to our contractor sustainability survey. When they do, something along the lines of “we use [large well known UK supplier], therefore 100% of our materials are responsibly sourced” is common.
Some large UK suppliers have developed metrics for assessing their supply chains and are forward thinking in this area. However, getting a hold of this data is challenging. It is also difficult to expect SMEs to dedicate the same resources when assessing their supply chains.
We still ask landlords to request data to demonstrate demand. Where possible they should obtain documentation to support claims. Mostly we see ISO 140001 certifications or responsible sourcing policies. But currently the quantitative data does not exist to calculate the percentage of materials identified as responsibly sourced.
Ideally, this should be regulated at the national level, encouraging countries to improve the social and ecological integrity of the materials they export (like the CBAM policy for carbon). But currently there is no such standard.
Our interim solution
As a response to this problem, we have developed a default figure for UK social landlords. This provides context and a reasonable benchmark for landlords when they are surveying their suppliers. To generate the default, we used three publicly available datasets for the top 20 countries which import to the UK:
Each country was given an average social score and ecological score out of 10. The weighted average of these scores according to the total import value was calculated. Excluding the UK, the estimated percentage of materials imported which are “responsibly sourced” is 53% or 5.3/10. Including UK produced materials this rises to 58%.
For reference, the UK average on its own is 59%. The worst is the United Arab Emirates at 41%. The second worst is the US at 46% – our largest foreign importer. The top performer is India due to its low ecological footprint (i.e., most of the population is poor, therefore low consumers). See Table 1 below.
A new benchmark
To summarise this metric is not perfect but provides an estimate in the absence of better data from suppliers at the national and local levels. This will give organisations such as social landlords a benchmark when engaging suppliers on responsible sourcing. There are obvious caveats to the metric; a high ecological score can negate a low social score, and vice versa. However, this estimate is ballpark and uses widely accessible data. And may provide a basis for encouraging other countries to improve their social and ecological performance.
Next steps
In an ideal world we would not import goods from countries who have poor environmental and/or social performance. This is not practical at the moment, so instead we encourage importers to engage with their supply chains to see what can be done to improve performance as a condition of purchasing from them.
We think this metric is pretty replicable for all countries and could be adapted to companies. E.g. they could survey their own supply chains and, based on where the goods are imported from, come up with a similar metric. In turn, their suppliers could supply better data if they have it.
We would also encourage the supply chain to devise their own metrics that are straightforward to implement, monitor and cover both environmental and social issues.
If you would like to have a chat about responsible sourcing in the supply chain, then please feel free to get in touch on [email protected]
