LUPC’s approach to supplier due diligence has been recognised as leading practice by independent third-party assessors, academics and professional institutes.
We are externally assessed every two years against the ISO20400 standard. Academics regularly cite our approach, most recently in “Intersecting sustainabilities: Protecting both people and planet in public sector supply chains” research funded by the Modern Slavery and Human Rights Policy and Evidence Centre (Modern Slavery PEC), also recognised by CIPS. We continue to collaborate with researchers, with a forthcoming case study to be published by Routledge in a chapter of “Teaching Public Procurement: Bridging Theory and Practice” written by Sofia Gonzalez De Aguinaga and Martina Trusgnach.
Our approach is agile, with continuous development a core value of our work in this area since 2017. We work in partnership with suppliers to support a “race to the top”, rather than adopting a compliance-driven burden of meeting minimum standards.
We aim to Inspire a Responsible Procurement movement among our suppliers and members, across consortia and the broader public sector in the UK and globally. We believe strongly in collaboration with external partners, who reach further into supply chains and provide specialised monitoring, grievance channels and worker-centred remedy, while we use our position to influence change and support supplier development.
Our supplier due diligence tool (SDDT), aims to create the fullest picture of supplier progress in terms of a sustainable approach to business, with a special focus on areas of material impact to our Members. We are interested in what suppliers are doing within their organisations, their supply chains, and communities.
While Responsible Procurement questions are embedded into the tender process from the beginning, once Suppliers commit to compliance with the SUSTAIN Supply Chain Code of Conduct, they are expected to participate in ongoing due diligence exercises including:
- the DueDiligent questionnaire
- the development of Carbon Reduction Plans
- responding to UK government’s Modern Slavery Assessment Tool (MSAT)
Corrective Action Plans are agreed with suppliers and form part of contract management.
We are ably supported with monitoring, grievance mechanisms and worker-centred remediation in global ICT supply chains via our affiliation with Electronicswatch and across sectors in the UK through our collaboration with Unseen.
