Case study: How Canacol promotes sustainability among its suppliers

What are the material issues the company has identified?            

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Canacol identified a range of material issues, such as ethics and transparency, compliance, human rights, gender equality and workplace inclusion, operational efficiency, energy transition. Among these, promoting sustainability among its suppliers stands out as a key material issue for Canacol.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Canacol engages with:

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics Canacol engaged with its stakeholders through dedicated websites, the annual Sustainability Report, assemblies, working sessions, workshops, and surveys.

What actions were taken by Canacol to promote sustainability among its suppliers?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Canacol reports that it took the following actions for promoting sustainability among its suppliers:

• Promoting environmental compliance
• Canacol encourages its suppliers to adopt and apply its environmental standards through operational controls and environmental monitoring of its value chain’s critical activities. These standards are dictated within contractual agreements as well as being included in Canacol’s Environmental Management Plan. Canacol monitors and controls the environmental impacts and risks of its contractors using a Criticality Map, which defines activity requirements for them. In 2019, Canacol identified eight suppliers with risks on emissions, noise generation, depletion of non-renewable resources, waste generation, water consumption, and generation of liquid waste, and agreed on improvements with each of them prior to the commencement of work.

• Assessing suppliers and contractors
• Canacol requires its contractors to abide by high social, environmental, and corporate governance (ESG) standards. Canacol’s policies are outlined in the Integrated Management System and selected contractors need to provide their policies and procedures for Canacol’s review. Each contractor is subject to whichever Policy is more stringent, their own, or Canacol’s. The Policy is included in the final contract through area-specific addenda for each product and service they provide. This Policy allows Canacol to sanction or terminate contractors that fail to comply with these standards. Canacol employs Health, Safety, Environment, and Quality (HSEQ) professionals to audit contractors throughout the contract term to ensure its policies are being met. If social or environmental compliance issues are identified, they are discussed with contractors, and the required corrective actions are undertaken. The main standards and best practices evaluated include the following:
  • Hiring of local skilled and non-skilled employees.
  • Social security payments.
  • Occupational health and safety.
  • Environmental impacts.
  • On-time payments to subcontractors.
  • Promoting and following human rights policies.
  • No discrimination.
  • Prevention of child and forced labour.
  • Prevention of corruption.
• Additionally, Canacol monitors the compliance of labour practices in its contractors through an internally developed auditing and indicator system called the Good Working Practices Process (GWP). It assesses how well Canacol’s contractors are meeting their legal labour requirements, employer obligations, and social agreements Canacol has made within the region. In 2019, this became the leading labour rights indicator in Canacol’s

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 308-1 New suppliers that were screened using environmental criteria

2) Disclosure 308-2 Negative environmental impacts in the supply chain and actions taken

3) Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria

4) Disclosure 414-2 Negative social impacts in the supply chain and actions taken

Disclosure 308-1 New suppliers that were screened using environmental criteria does not correspond to any SDG.

Disclosure 308-2 Negative environmental impacts in the supply chain and actions taken does not correspond to any SDG.

Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.8
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
• Targets: 16.1

Disclosure 414-2 Negative social impacts in the supply chain and actions taken corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.8
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
• Targets: 16.1

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Canacol, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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