Unilever is Asking Suppliers to Sign Up for Responsible Sourcing

Responsible sourcing is very much a hot button issue in the procurement business today. With supply chains become inexorably more global and complex, the opportunities for unethical practices to inadvertently find their way in have also grown in number.

It is this fact which has motivated Unilever to introduce a new policy which will require new suppliers to sign up to its responsible sourcing policy during the contract onboarding process. The COVID-19 crisis has led to a need for more agile sourcing, but Unilever acknowledges this needs to be balanced with responsibility.

“We switched on 60 to 70 new suppliers within the first few months of Covid, particularly around hygiene products,” said Chief Procurement Officer at Unilever, Dave Ingram. “We have a responsible sourcing policy within Unilever, so we have had to do that in line with our RSP principles. We also needed to audit so we had to change our auditing mechanism to be virtual with people walking around with cameras through those facilities.”

This represents a significant change to Unilever policy. Previously it had only asked suppliers to sign up to the policy after the ink was dry and the contracts signed, but the new regime will require it as part of the onboarding process. This will ensure suppliers are committed to the requirements of the responsible sourcing policy before Unilever conducts any work with them.

“We're tracking data of what's where and when,” continued Ingram. “We're probably going to look to professionalise that over the course of the next 18 months to ensure availability or at least information flow. If we know there's going to be challenges, we can plan around it through alternative sourcing and management.”