Sustainable procurement
Our supplier partners play a vital role in our success
We source a huge number of products and services globally - from vehicle glass, trims, adhesives and workshop tools to IT software and professional services. We want sustainability to be embedded in the way we operate, so that we make a positive difference through our procurement processes. Our supplier partners are critical in enabling us to serve our customers and in achieving our purpose of making a memorable difference with care. They also help us to drive innovation and efficiency, and deliver value for our shareholders, our colleagues, customers and society.
Our supplier partnerships are built around four key pillars of Quality, Availability, Cost and Sustainability. We buy products and services that meet our strict quality requirements, at optimal cost and wherever possible make a positive impact on society and the environment.
Why it’s important
Our Sustainable Procurement Programme ensures that the pillar of Sustainability is part of all our purchasing strategies, buying decisions and collaboration with our suppliers. Sustainable procurement is critical to achieving our responsible business ambitions as our suppliers have a key part to play in helping us meet our waste and emissions reduction targets. We also want to ensure that our commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion, and people safety extend across our value chain.
Our ambition
We aim to ensure our suppliers, and the products and services we buy, as well as meeting our requirements for Quality, Availability and Cost, have a positive impact on the environment and society, while at the same time improving our supply chain efficiency and resilience.
Global sourcing
Our Group procurement function sources and manages the procurement of the core products and services that we use in our businesses around the world. Our centrally-procured products include vehicle glass, trims, adhesives, workshop equipment, tools, consumables and products for resale. Our centrally procured services include IT software and maintenance, professional services, vehicle leasing, and the maintenance of our van fleet. Other products and services we require are sourced and managed by our individual businesses through their own supplier networks.
Our actions
In 2024, we launched our Global Procurement policy to give our businesses a comprehensive set of standards in both direct and indirect procurement of products and services. This is an important step towards achieving world-class procurement standards, and ensuring that our processes are conducted with integrity and transparency, and with a focus on risk, sustainability and value for money. We are now embedding this new policy across our businesses. We also made important progress in sustainable procurement, including the update and publication of new guidance for our supplier partners, giving greater clarity on our expectations and hands-on support on how to meet them. We strengthened our procurement governance with the introduction of a suite of new policies to reduce and manage risk, ensure compliance, and push our overall procurement standards higher, most significantly with the publication of our Conflict Minerals policy. We continued our programme of assessing our suppliers with both remote and on-site audits, reaching the important milestone of having all our most critical supplier sites covered by an active assessment.
You can read more about some of our actions below:
Our Responsible Business Framework summarises our ambitions for doing the right thing
Climate change is a global emergency and we’re taking action to drive down our emissions.