Case study: How NORMA Group promotes sustainability in purchasing

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2017 CR Report NORMA Group identified a range of material issues, such as customer satisfaction, health and safety, efficient production processes, quality management, elimination of discrimination. Among these, promoting sustainability in purchasing stands out as a key material issue for NORMA Group.

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 NORMA Group engages with:

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics, NORMA Group engaged with key stakeholder groups through a questionnaire that was completed by over 30 internal and external stakeholders.

What actions were taken by NORMA Group to promote sustainability in purchasing?

In its 2017 CR Report NORMA Group reports that it took the following actions for promoting sustainability in purchasing:

• Implementing a Supplier Code of Conduct

• NORMA Group’s Supplier Code of Conduct forms the basis for its sustainable supplier relations. Only a supplier who has signed the Code of Conduct can be classified as “preferred”. Among other topics, the Supplier Code of Conduct requires suppliers to comply with the following:
  • Respect for and attention to human rights
  • Exclusion of forced and compulsory labour
  • Prohibition of child labour
  • Ensuring occupational health and safety
  • Business integrity (anti-corruption)

• Introducing Group-wide supplier scoring
• To be better able to assess, compare and manage its suppliers, NORMA Group has introduced Group-wide supplier scoring. Apart from the price, numerous other factors are also taken into consideration, such as quality, cost transparency and logistics services. Most importantly, one of the four pillars of scoring is “sustainability,” in which NORMA Group queries environmental and occupational safety certifications.

• Launching a sustainability self-assessment
• In 2017, for the first time, a voluntary sustainability self-assessment formed part of NORMA Group’s supplier scoring. NORMA Group asked suppliers for detailed information on social issues (freedom of association, grievance mechanisms and accidents), environmental issues (including CO2 emissions, water consumption and waste management) and, also, compliance issues. The self-assessment was completed by 18% of the suppliers included in the scoring, and NORMA Group has set the goal of increasing participation in the sustainability self-assessment by 5% every year. Additionally, NORMA Group aims to embed sustainability aspects in its commodity strategies. Sustainability fact sheets will be created for various commodities, to identify sustainability risks more effectively and minimise them in a targeted manner.

• Excluding conflict minerals from the supply chain whenever possible

• NORMA Group tries to exclude conflict minerals from its supply chains as far as possible and has introduced the “Conflict Minerals Roadmap,” to create maximum transparency within the supplier base. The Roadmap is based on the Conflict Minerals Reporting Template (CMRT) of the Conflict Free Sourcing Initiative, which all relevant suppliers had to complete and, in 2016, NORMA Group integrated the management of CMRT into its eSourcing platform, to better evaluate and follow up on feedback from suppliers. NORMA Group also trained purchasers at all sites on the importance of conflict minerals issues and the possible risk related to the materials coming from suppliers who might be involved. In addition, NORMA Group makes sure that 100% of affected suppliers have signed its Supplier Code of Conduct, which requires them to conduct due diligence on conflict minerals issues.

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

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: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
• Business theme: Workplace violence and harassment
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
• Business theme: Labor practices in the supply chain
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
• Business theme: Workplace violence and harassment

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 NORMA Group, 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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