Responsible sourcing is ensuring that materials sourced by a company has been done in a sustainable and ethical manner – integrating social and environmental performance factors. Companies today are increasingly being evaluated on their supply chain responsibility. Accountability and transparency are becoming important to the consumers, investors and other stakeholders. NGOs and growing regulatory requirements are also pushing the companies to put environmental and social issues at the heart of their business strategy.
As such, companies need to know their supply chain more intimately to avoid being an organization who simply sifts through invoices to figure out where their spend goes. They need to be more involved to be able to take responsibility for their supplier’s social, ethical and environmental practices.
As India continues to increase its footprint as a key sourcing area across sectors, it is strategically positioned to take a leading role in promoting sustainable trade across value chains. There is an increased awareness on sustainability risks as well as opportunities amongst the businesses today and they are viewing responsible sourcing from India as a step towards brand building and creating supply chain leadership. The rewards are not only great; but these businesses stand every chance of growing as more companies accept the sustainability norm.
Innovation Lab
Responsible sourcing is key to IDH’s work in India as well as in its global programs. To facilitate dialogues on the subject, IDH in India is organizing a session on ‘Catalyzing Change – India: Secure Responsible Sourcing’ during its 10-year anniversary event. The session will explore opportunities for a new potential based on sustainable and inclusive growth for both domestic and international markets.
The session will be interactive and results-driven, aimed at translating ideas into practical steps. It will provide learnings from various actors in value chains on embracing sustainable practices, while retaining consumers’ trust and creating new opportunities for positive social impact. It will deepen participants’ insight on key enabling factors that allow for responsible sourcing practices for domestic and international actors in emerging economies like India.
The session will look into developing tangible ideas and steps on how to convince suppliers, manufacturers and brands to embrace responsible sourcing in their businesses, as well as for aligning internal engagement across policy and operations to drive responsible sourcing.
