Case study: How Synthomer promotes sustainability among its suppliers
Synthomer is a global differentiated chemicals company and one of the world’s leading suppliers of sustainable water-based polymer solutions, holding leadership positions in a wide range of markets including coatings, construction, textiles, paper, adhesives, healthcare and oil and gas. Synthomer wants to use its global scope and scale to help lead the sustainability agenda. That means holding itself to the highest standards in its policies, systems and processes. And it means working in partnership with its suppliers and peers to create a more sustainable value chain.
This case study is based on the 2020 Sustainability Report by Synthomer, prepared in accordance with the GRI Standards, that can be found at this link. Through all case studies we aim to demonstrate what CSR/ ESG/ sustainability reporting done responsibly means. Essentially, it means: a) identifying a company’s most important impacts on the environment, economy and society, and b) measuring, managing and changing.
Synthomer’s position in its value chain allows it a privileged action vis-à-vis its suppliers, which results in benefits mainly in the social and environmental aspects of sustainability. Tweet This! In order to promote sustainability among its suppliers Synthomer took action to:
- conduct risk assessments
- assess suppliers’ performance
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With this case study you will see:
- Which are the most important impacts (material issues) Synthomer has identified;
- How Synthomer proceeded with stakeholder engagement, and
- What actions were taken by Synthomer to promote sustainability among its suppliers
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What are the material issues the company has identified?
In its 2020 Sustainability Report Synthomer identified a range of material issues, such as ethics and integrity, occupational health and safety, energy management and reduction, process safety. Among these, promoting sustainability among its suppliers stands out as a key material issue for Synthomer.
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:
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 Synthomer engages with:
Stakeholder Group |
Customers |
Employees |
Suppliers |
Shareholders |
Legislators |
Authorities |
Local communities |
How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues
To identify and prioritise material topics Synthomer engaged with its stakeholders through an online survey designed to collect stakeholders’ feedback, submitted to nearly 400 individuals across all the geographic regions where Synthomer operates.
What actions were taken by Synthomer to promote sustainability among its suppliers?
In its 2020 Sustainability Report Synthomer reports that it took the following actions for promoting sustainability among its suppliers:
- Conducting risk assessments
- In 2020, a risk assessment using external specialists was conducted by Synthomer across eight spend areas and seven environmental and social risk areas. The risk areas were identified following a structured approach of embedded risk, industry mitigation factors and supplier mitigation factors. Overall, the environmental and social risks within Synthomer’s supply chain are relatively low due to high levels of mitigation (regulation, audits, voluntary action) that are already taken across the industry sector and by Synthomer’s largest suppliers. The highest risk areas identified were carbon emissions and energy use, waste generation and management within the monomer supply chain. The latter is so for many reasons, including accounting for a high proportion of Synthomer’s spend and being core to the business. Logistics is also a high risk due to carbon emissions, predominantly through the use of large goods vehicles. This identification of the main sustainability risks is being integrated into existing risk governance processes. The governance process is also being enriched with a full supplier-level risk scanning tool and sustainability ratings.
- Assessing suppliers’ performance
- Before a vendor is on-boarded and approved as a trading partner, Synthomer employs standardised assessment processes. A periodic review of key suppliers is carried out to assess performance of the supplier against criteria covering technical support, commercial performance, reputation including REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) and local regulatory compliance. The final target in Synthomer’s Sustainable Procurement Strategy is audit and assessment against its minimum standards.
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
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References:
This case study is based on published information by Synthomer, 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 following link:
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