University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

Table 6 Review Categories and Results
FURTHER ANALYSIS OF SURVEY
Category A - BCS 3
Accredited Environmental Management
1 System used by focal company – ISO 14
001 or EMAS?
In-house EMS. Own code of conduct;
expect suppliers to meet own standards.
2
Own supplier quality partnership system
including a biodiversity element?
3 ISO 14001 required in supply chain - 1st or
2 nd Tier?
Acorn or BS8555 recommended to
4
suppliers?
Obligation for a supplier to require
5 biodiversity criteria from their own
suppliers?
Red
Zon
e (6)
Amber
Zone
(6)
Green
Zone
(7)
Total
(19)
5 6 7 18
5 6 6 17
2 2 4 8
2 0 0 2
0 1 2 3
661
The results also show that with one exception, each of these 19 companies employed
an accredited EMS such as ISO14001 or EMAS. Nevertheless the one nonaccredited
company operated its own in-house system. In fact a total of 17
companies had internal systems, which contained specific biodiversity elements and
involved, amongst other things, working in partnership with suppliers. These inhouse
systems are often based on ISO 14001 and tailored either to the industrial
sector the company operates in, or to a type of product.
Strategic suppliers are often expected to comply with the company EMS via a due
diligence process. Various titles for such processes are used, for example,
Responsible Care Management (ACC, 2007), Electronic Industry Code of Conduct
(HP, 2009), Vendor Code of Conduct, Supplier Relationship Management,
Responsible Sourcing Standards, Supplier Management and Assessment Systems,
Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX, 2009) and Global Compact Sustainable
Supplier Management System (GC, 2003). However, only 8 of the 19 companies
required their first or second tier suppliers to adopt accredited EMS systems.
Interestingly four of these eight cases were low risk (green zone) companies.
Therefore in the majority of cases, the requirement of focal companies for suppliers
to have accredited EMSs may currently be viewed as too restrictive in terms of
supplier sourcing. The operation of purchaser-supplier partnerships and contractual
agreements or assurances may be more workable solutions in the current business
climate.
The results indicated an upward trend in red risk zone focal companies requiring ISO
14001 by a staged approach, through Acorn (IEMA, 2009) or BS8555 (BSi, 2009).
Overall the data are too sparse, with a total of only 2 companies reporting across all 3
Risk Zones, for any meaningful conclusion to be drawn however. The overall (crosszone)
indication is that encouragement to start a staged approach to achieving ISO
14001 is not widely recommended to suppliers.