Diageo drinks to sustainable procurement success

Article taken from Sustainable Sourcing. To view article, click here

Sustainability offers procurement the chance the place itself at the heart of the modern-day business.

That's the view of John Dickson, head of global procurement at Diageo, who believes that the increased focus on sustainability offers procurement the opportunity to flex its muscles when it comes to defining and executing strategy.

Diageo's 2009 Corporate Responsibility Report outlined how the company had ditched a major supplier of branded merchandising materials after it had failed to give ethical sourcing assurances.
And it's procurement's involvement in such decisions that, Dickson believes, offers the function greater scope to extend its reach.

"We have to position procurement at the heart of the business agenda - we have so much to offer, we touch many different aspects of the business strategy," Dickson tells Sustainable Sourcing.

"The consumer on the street is undoubtedly becoming more discerning, they have a lot more choice and they will differentiate those offerings by a number of things and the more that the environmental agenda gets raised and they become aware of it the more the kind of ecological issues will come to bare."

With Diageo operating in such a high profile and brand heavy industry, Dickson is all too aware of the pressure the company finds itself under when it comes to corporate social responsibility.

And the company's procurement operation is working hard to ensure that its reputation in this area is unblemished.

"We as procurement need to make sure that we are stimulating suppliers to bring innovation, particularly around packaging, to ensure that we're constantly pushing the boundaries of the agenda," says Dickson.

"We work for a company for which premiumisation is absolutely critical. A lot of people say you can't have that kind of approach and still have sustainable packaging but we've got to crack that.

"We can't just say 'this is a very heavy bottle because it's a premium product' anymore - you just simply can't get away with that."

To download Diageo's Corporate Citizenship Report 2009, click here

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