PARIS & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--EcoVadis, the world’s most trusted provider of business sustainability ratings, today announced the winners of its third annual Sustainable Procurement Leadership Awards and Sustainability Leadership Awards, including Clariant, Air Liquide and Henkel. Winners were announced at EcoVadis’ annual Sustain conference in Paris.
The awards program recognizes excellence in sustainability and sustainable procurement across several categories including: stakeholder engagement, supplier engagement, supplier portfolio CSR performance improvement, program leadership and regional performance. Additionally, they serve to acknowledge and celebrate companies partnering with EcoVadis that are driving progress in sustainability and igniting change across the world.
“Each year we see organizations raising the bar in sustainable procurement practices and seeing real business value from their commitment to sustainability. This year we were amazed with the outstanding quality of nominees,” said Pierre-Francois Thaler, co-CEO, EcoVadis. “Our 2019 winners are models of leadership, igniting change toward a more sustainable future not only in their own companies, but in their industries and the world.”
Nominees were evaluated on strategy and approach, procurement integration, scale and coverage, and program results across four main categories:
Sustainable Procurement: Best Internal Stakeholder Engagement
Winner:
Clariant
Honorable Mention: Saint-Gobain
“The groundswell of consumer sentiment to buy on the basis of a sustainable criteria is cascading all the way up the value chain. We at Clariant are immensely proud to be recognized with this award and as a company operating in the chemicals market,” said Markus Mirgeler, Head of Group Procurement at Clariant. “We believe it’s vital to continuously engage our employees in procurement, to select and manage suppliers that meet our expectations in terms of sustainability.”
This award recognizes best-in-class examples of driving internal engagement to roll out global sustainable procurement programs. According to the evaluation, “Clariant demonstrates excellent organization structure and integration of procurement into group-wide sustainability efforts. Especially the capacity building programs and cross-functional projects across the organization are evidence of best-in-class internal stakeholder engagement.”
Sustainable Procurement: Best Value Chain Engagement
Winner:
Air Liquide
“Air Liquide is extremely pleased to receive this “Best value chain engagement” award as it is a reflection of our commitment to position sustainability as a primary business value for us and our suppliers, and a valuable recognition of the work of our teams to deploy best CSR practices,” said Yves Bataillon Debes, Chief Procurement Officer of Air Liquide.
This award acknowledges excellence in engaging suppliers in sustainable procurement programs. Judges assessed initiatives such as training programs, supplier’s development program plans and efforts to train and reward suppliers for sustainability and CSR performance.
Sustainable Procurement: Best Portfolio CSR Performance
Improvement
Winner: Henkel
“The continuous improvement of our suppliers’ sustainability performance is one key element of our responsible sourcing strategy. The joint initiative, Together for Sustainability (TfS), which we co-founded and now share with 23 international chemical companies, has been instrumental in reaching this result by pooling resources, energies, and best practices around the principle: “An audit for one is an audit for all!” said Bertrand Conquéret, Corporate Senior Vice President Purchasing (CPO) at Henkel. “We are very proud to receive this award, as a recognition of the efforts we take to initiate positive change throughout the entire value chain.”
This award recognizes companies demonstrating the highest percentage of suppliers improving their CSR performance and EcoVadis average score. This category was not open for submissions and the award is granted based on the EcoVadis data.
Outstanding Program Leadership
Winner: Cécilia
Frasnetti, Saint-Gobain
Introduced in 2018, this award recognizes individuals with outstanding contribution to driving a sustainable procurement initiative forward within their organizations. This award is nominated and selected by the EcoVadis team. Frasnetti was recognized for her outstanding contribution, personal drive and determination, business acumen and resilience in tackling sustainable procurement challenges, fostering long-lasting relationships with suppliers, embedding sustainability in Saint-Gobain's procurement processes and creating immense value for the business.
“I am very proud of this recognition as it celebrates three years of leading ambitious projects, and the work of our committed network of buyers,” said Frasnetti. “Without their motivation and tireless efforts to improve everyday practices, we wouldn’t have seen the sustainability impact we have today.”
Sustainability Leadership Awards
EcoVadis also awarded Sustainability Leadership Awards for rated suppliers based on their EcoVadis score in the following categories:
- Best regional performance (Eligibility: small and medium-sized businesses of under 1,000 employees).
- Best industry category performance (Eligibility: small and medium-sized businesses of under 1,000 employees).
Sustainability Leadership: Best regional performance
This award recognizes the best EcoVadis score performance in five geographic regions:
- China: Atlinks Holdings
- North America: Chep Canada Inc., EA Engineering Science and Technology Inc., and Verescence North America Inc.
- LATAM: Corporacion Inmobiliaria
- APAC (outside China): Trojan Recruitment Group
- Europe: Majencia
Sustainability Leadership: Best industry category performance
This awards the highest EcoVadis score among companies who completed an EcoVadis assessment in 2018, in each of nine macro-categories and two corporate categories:
- Construction: Fadep Srl
- Light Manufacturing: Majencia
- Wholesale / Tertiary Services: Start People
- Heavy Manufacturing: Novacarb
- Transportation: Blb Transport and TecnoFer SpA
- Advanced Manufacturing: SCLE SFE
- Information and Communications Technology: DCS Easyware SAS
- Food and Beverage: Refresco Benelux
- Finance / Legal / Consulting / Advertising: BearingPoint France SAS
About EcoVadis:
EcoVadis is the world’s most trusted
provider of business sustainability ratings, intelligence and
collaborative performance improvement tools for global supply chains.
Backed by a powerful technology platform and a global team of domain
experts, EcoVadis’ easy-to-use and actionable sustainability scorecards
provide detailed insight into environmental, social and ethical risks
across 198 purchasing categories and 155 countries. Industry leaders
such as Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, L’Oréal, Subway, Nestlé, Salesforce,
Michelin and BASF are among the more than 55,000 businesses on the
EcoVadis network, all working with a single methodology to evaluate,
collaborate and improve sustainability performance in order to protect
their brands, foster transparency and innovation, and accelerate growth.
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