Case study

Retailer grows CSR initiative to 12 markets and 7 languages

A global retailer supports dozens of international Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. These initiatives aim to improve its sustainability and ethical credentials and customer perception of its impact on the environment and communities. Suppliers’ engagement is critical to CSR success as most retail supply chains present significant opportunities for sustainable improvements.

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At a glance

The retailer consolidated its CSR communication to suppliers into a single portal and significantly increased its engagement activities. The result was higher supplier participation and thanks to the advanced communications functionality within The Supply Pilot Platform, scaled its unified efforts across a dozen multilingual markets.

Industry

Food & Drink

Materially important issue

Sustainability strategy engagement

Step of the process
Benchmark Activation
Platform elements used
Supplier engagement Supply Chain Data Collection
Number of suppliers

4,000

Outcome

85%+ survey response rates

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Background

The global CSR team was challenged to deliver a series of sustainability improvements around areas such as greenhouse gas emissions, recycled plastics, and supplier diversity.

However, with the disconnected nature of the communication to the suppliers lead to conflicting priorities, contradictory messaging and limited supporting information. It soon became apparent that a better solution was needed. This had a significant impact on the motivation of suppliers to participate, and enabled them to provide the often complex information that was requested.

Solution

The CSR team approached Supply Pilot who implemented a centralized, multilingual supplier-facing web platform for CSR initiatives. The platform included an extensive library of supplier self-help materials available on demand. This was accompanied by Supply Pilot’s engagement services, offering advice and support in the delivery of activities to maintain supplier collaboration.

Visual management dashboards provided transparency between retailers and suppliers around topics such as ‘diverse supplier’ spend across markets, CSR survey completion, and sustainable product attribute achievement.

Impact

The unified approach allowed the retailer to scale its CSR initiatives over a dozen international markets and seven different languages with the same resource. Survey response rates increased significantly, regardless of complexity, with some achieving consistently over 85% within two weeks of launch.

The platform continues to support successful engagement with over 4,000 suppliers around CSR with traffic averaging 8,000 visits every month.

Key facts

The Supply Pilot Platform became the central location for this retailers supplier engagement strategy around their sustainability program.

12 international markets

supported by "Sustainability Hub" using the Supply Pilot Platform

7 different languages supported

through sourcing office localization and professional translation

85%+ survey response rates

as a result of increased ongoing engagement and investment in supplier knowledgebase

8,000 visits per month

from suppliers all over the globe learning more about the retailers sustainability program

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