Turning supply chain pressure into strategic advantage – with the right approach.
Procurement sits at the heart of the sustainability transformation – and is under growing pressure. Regulatory requirements such as the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG), the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) are compelling companies to establish transparency across their supply chains. At the same time, geopolitical risks, resource scarcity and mounting expectations from investors and customers around ESG criteria continue to grow.
Yet many procurement functions are neither strategically nor operationally prepared for these demands: risks and action areas are undefined, responsibilities unclear, data incomplete, and decision-making criteria insufficiently account for sustainability. And yet, procurement can be far more than a cost centre – it is a strategic driver of resilience, compliance and innovation.
Why You Should Start Now
We support you along the entire journey towards a sustainable procurement organisation – from strategic alignment and operating model design through to operational implementation and digital enablement. Our five service areas work seamlessly together.
A future-proof procurement strategy goes far beyond cost optimisation. Together, we analyse which sustainability topics are strategically relevant for your industry and organisation – from CO₂- reduction and climate risks to social factors, human rights, resource availability and geopolitical dependencies. On this basis, we develop a clear procurement strategy that aligns your sustainability goals with your business requirements. The result: a prioritised roadmap that gives your procurement function clear direction and can be communicated both internally and externally.
A strategy only delivers results when the organisation behind it functions effectively. We support you in building a high-performance operating model for your procurement function: Who is responsible for which sustainability topics? What data and KPIs are needed to steer measures and track progress? What incentive structures motivate buyers to apply sustainability criteria consistently? We design structures, processes and governance mechanisms so that sustainability becomes embedded in day-to-day procurement.
Sustainable procurement stands or falls with supplier management. We help you build a structured supplier management approach – from ESG assessment and segmentation of your supplier base through to processes for onboarding, monitoring and development. We also support you in engaging suppliers to contribute to your targets – for example, in reducing Scope 3 emissions. In addition, we develop practical assessment frameworks that enable buyers to systematically integrate sustainability criteria into procurement decisions and resolve trade-offs – between price, quality and carbon footprint – in a transparent and traceable way. This allows decisions to be made consistently, even at a decentralised level.
Supply chain risks are complex and dynamic. We systematically analyse your supply chain for ESG risks: Where do dependencies on suppliers, critical raw materials or regions exist? Which suppliers present social or environmental risks? How do climate events affect your security of supply? Based on this analysis, we prioritise action areas and develop risk mitigation measures – aligned with regulatory requirements from the LkSG and CSRD and integrated into your existing risk management framework. You receive a clear foundation for reporting, stakeholder communication and internal governance.
Sustainable procurement generates data – and requires the right tools to make that data actionable. We support you in selecting and implementing IT solutions that make your procurement processes more efficient and transparent: from supplier assessment platforms such as EcoVadis and Sedex, to CO₂ tracking tools and integrated procurement suites. We remain vendor-neutral throughout, focusing exclusively on your requirements, your IT landscape and your budget.
Circular Economy Procurement.
Strategic product group management can help you tap into potential savings, innovation, quality, and sustainability. It lets you analyze strategic product groups in terms of environmental, social, and ethical opportunities and risks, and spot areas for improvement.
We support your purchasing department in identifying critical product groups in relation to key sustainability issues such as climate protection, circular economy, and human rights. These can be derived on the basis of the sustainability strategy or sustainable procurement strategy, risk and hotspot analyses, greenhouse gas accounting, or life cycle analyses.
Together with your purchasers and product group managers, we determine criteria and starting points for systematically anchoring sustainability aspects in product group strategies. Sustainability thus takes on strategic importance in the selection and development of suppliers, in the design of products and services (e.g., via specifications), and in award decisions (e.g., via tenders).
