The demand to develop such methodological recommendations is caused by an increasing trend in building sustainable supply chains for major Russian businesses. All large Russian companies are implementing ESG requirements in supply chain management, seeking not only to motivate their counterparties to follow the best ESG practices, but also to manage their own ESG-risks in the supply chain.
The key goal of the methodological recommendations is to provide businesses with practical guidance on how to assess suppliers based on sustainability criteria. The distinctive features of the Guidelines are as follows:
· The recommendations target big companies that are just beginning to implement ESG assessments in their procurement procedures and are valuable in terms of streamlining the ESG assessment process. They will also be useful for the SME suppliers to raise awareness on current or future ESG-compliance requirements that big companies impose on their counterparties.
· The recommendations describe an ESG assessment process that can be implemented by any company, regardless of its level of expertise in sustainable procurement;
· The recommendations include several versions of a questionnaire with ESG criteria for assessing suppliers: a basic questionnaire with 23 questions, a questionnaire for advanced practices, and a questionnaire for market leaders. Providing such variability, the guidelines allow to assess suppliers with any level of ESG practices development;
· The document contains unified assessment criteria developed with direct participation of large companies - members of the National ESG Alliance and is in alignment with their existing practices.
· The universal assessment criteria may become a basis for joining efforts of companies in suppliers ESG assessment and for creating a single mechanism or service for such assessment in the Russian market.
Presentation of Kept, developer of the Methodological recommendation is available here.
