Similar to P&G, IBM has also announced new management system requirements to advance sustainability across the company’s global network of suppliers. IBM’s “first-tier” suppliers – those firms with which IBM holds a direct commercial relationship – will now be required to establish and follow a management system to address their corporate and environmental responsibilities.
This is the latest move in IBM’s decades-long commitment to working with suppliers around corporate responsibility initiatives. The company runs one of the largest, most complex supply chains in the world, spanning 28,000 first-tier suppliers in 90 countries.
IBM’s suppliers are now required to:
- define, deploy, and sustain a management system that addresses corporate responsibility, including supplier conduct and environmental protection;
- measure performance and establish voluntary, quantifiable environmental goals;
- publicly disclose results associated with these voluntary environmental goals and other environmental aspects of their management systems.
In detail, IBM asks its suppliers to:
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Define, deploy, and sustain a corporate responsibility and environmental management system that identifies significant aspects of the supplier’s intersections with these matters, including those articulated in IBM’s Supplier Conduct Principles and the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition Code of Conduct
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Establish programs (within the management system) to control operations that intersect with these matters and confirm compliance with applicable law, regulation and any particular contractual requirements
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Measure performance associated with supplier’s significant environmental aspects where applicable and include at a minimum each of the following aspects common to virtually all businesses:
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Set voluntary environmental goals to achieve positive results associated with significant aspects where applicable and include at a minimum one in each of the three aspects cited in item 3 above
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Publicly disclose results associated with these voluntary environmental goals and other environmental aspects from the management system, including any regulatory fines or penalties that may have occurred
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Train employees who are responsible for performing this work
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Conduct self-assessments and audits as well as management reviews
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Cascade this set of requirements to the supplier’s suppliers who perform work that is material to the products, parts and/or services being supplied to IBM
The orginal IBM Press release can be found HERE
IBM Global Procurement Requirements can be found HERE