The responsible purchasing, a CSR imperative for your supply chain

According to ISO 20400, responsible purchasing refers to any purchase that has the most positive environmental, social, and economic impact possible throughout its entire life cycle. This involves selecting innovative products, suppliers, or service providers in order to minimize these risks, while promoting best practices in terms of the environment, ethics, and human rights. The issue has taken on a new dimension since 2013 and the Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh, where a building housing textile manufacturing operations subcontracted by major fashion brands collapsed, killing more than a thousand people. For a contractor, ethical risk is compounded by reputational risk, which can be extremely damaging in an era of globalization and social media.

Implementing a responsible purchasing policy enables companies to limit these risks by complying with legal requirements, such as the duty of care introduced by French law in 2017 and replicated across the European Union. with the CS3D directive .
 

Buyers can rely on normative standards that provide guidelines and list best practices, alongside the regulatory approach (Sapin 2 law, duty of care, CSRD, CS3D). These voluntary international standards help you deploy a management system in a spirit of continuous improvement.

• ISO 20400, international reference framework for a structured and pragmatic approach
• ISO 31000, the benchmark in risk management , for corporate risk managers
• ISO 9001, 14001, and 45001: the QSE standard, because the purchasing function and the QSE function are closely linked in terms of quality management , environmental or from occupational health and safety
• ISO 37001, relating to anti-bribery management systems.

The AFNOR Purchasing Solutions team offers consulting and assistance services:

• strategic in the development, formalization, and structuring of your approach (maturity assessment, purchasing policy, supplier charters, roadmaps or SPASER, organization and resources of the function, management, monitoring indicators, etc.)
• operational at all stages of the purchasing process (sourcing, characterization of needs, development of purchasing strategies, assistance in drafting consultation documents and analyzing bids, etc.)

We provide you with access to two tools:

• A risk mapping tool , to secure your purchases by product category
• A platform for evaluating your suppliers , to test their readiness to meet your requirements