Case study: How Sydney Airport promotes sustainability among its suppliers

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2019 Sustainability Report Sydney Airport identified a range of material issues, such as economic performance, employee attraction, retention and development, climate change, community investment and engagement. Among these, promoting sustainability among its suppliers stands out as a key material issue for Sydney Airport.

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 Sydney Airport engages with:

To identify and prioritise material topics Sydney Airport engaged with its stakeholders through the following channels:

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

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

• Implementing a Supplier Code of Conduct
• Sydney Airport’s Supplier Code of Conduct sets out how Sydney Airport manages its relationships with suppliers and its minimum expectations. It covers areas including health and safety, corporate governance, workplace conditions and human rights. Sydney Airport’s procurement spend mainly related to construction projects, security services, and facilities management services including cleaning services and baggage handling operations.

• Assessing suppliers
• During 2019 Sydney Airport assessed 25 suppliers against the expectations set out in the Supplier Code of Conduct. This accounts for 72 per cent of its in-scope third party spend. The majority of those suppliers met or exceeded Sydney Airport’s expectations, with six supplier improvement plans issued. The areas identified for improvement centred around:
  • Plans or initiatives supporting engagement of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander employment, business or communities
  • Coverage of bribery and corruption within submitted policies
  • Training of key policy documents (e.g. work health and safety, governance)
  • Lack of reference to Fair Work within submitted documents
• Pleasingly, these suppliers actioned the gaps identified in their individual supplier improvement plans and all outstanding items were closed during 2019. Additionally, Sydney Airport continues to support the Business Council of Australia’s Australian Supplier Payment Code, which is designed to support the long-term viability of small businesses.

• Combating modern slavery
• In 2019, Sydney Airport completed a risk assessment for modern slavery in its business and supply chain, identifying high risk areas. Existing controls for these risks were reviewed, and where necessary, Sydney Airport strengthened these to make sure it is not doing business with individuals or companies that profit from modern slavery.

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 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 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

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 Sydney Airport, 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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