Encouraging our Suppliers to act responsibly

Our supply chain decisions have a number of dimensions impacting sustainability, carbon footprint, and responsible and ethical behaviour.

We need our supply chain to remain committed to sustainable sourcing, whilst ensuring our processes continue to support the balance between managing our environment and social impacts with our drive for cost efficiency.

A Sustainable Policy

We have a policy in place to select suppliers that are environmentally and socially sustainable and able to support our sustainability commitments. It’s also our policy to maintain professional and mutually beneficial relationships where we work together to find new, more sustainable solutions to our needs. In particular, we have:

• Implemented risk assessments across our supply base to ensure ethical sourcing
• Updated our supply chain processes to ensure that they are based on the best sustainable procurement practices
• Introduced contract incentives to encourage suppliers to find ways to reduce ours and their environmental impacts
• Developed joint business plans with key suppliers to incorporate joint sustainability targets
• Supported our business partners in developing and implementing sourcing activities to deliver NATS’ environmental targets

Communication and Collaboration

NATS uses over 1,000 suppliers and recognises the importance they play in our service. Our key suppliers account for more than 80% of our expenditure, so it is vital they share our values and goals. Therefore, we ensure that we communicate our requirements to our suppliers so they can help us create a culture of environmental and ethical excellence. We were one of the first organisations to achieve BS 11000 for collaborative business relationships and successfully secure re-certification.

Validating Sustainability Credentials

We have enhanced our questionnaire to obtain information on suppliers’ corporate responsibility credentials and conduct supplier anti-bribery risk assessments. Our supplier management process includes measurement of environment and social sustainability performance. We use this data to decide which suppliers we use and to develop an improvement plan that encourages new ideas for further reducing the environmental impact of the services they provide. On an annual basis we review our supplier segmentation and how to manage our suppliers.

Developing Our Capabilities

We continue to develop the skills of our team in adopting sustainable procurement practices and incorporating sustainability objectives as part of a balanced value approach. Recent examples of our sustainable sourcing include:

• We supported the sourcing activities for FM Asset replacement projects to reduce CO2 emissions
• Together with our business stakeholders we manage our key suppliers to support NATS’ KPI Targets for CO2 reduction across the Estate
• We are driving down the demand for travel by improving on-site video conferencing as well as maximising the use of internal meeting room space
• The NATS Low Emission Car Scheme is entering its 3rd year with an average emission of 104 CO2
• The ‘Car share’ programme is now being promoted for Car Hire bookings
• We have set environmental targets for our function to further enhance our environmental awareness and to measure the implementation progress of sustainability activities across the end-to-end supply chain

Future Developments

As we continue our commitment to supply chain sustainability, our plans through 2014 are to;

• Embed the category management approach ensuring a robust strategic supply chain methodology which is sustainable and aligned to balanced business objectives and value on a whole life cycle basis
• Continue to review our processes, tools and templates to further adopt best practice and ensure that CSR is embedded throughout the end to end supply chain
• Work with our supply chain to ensure it supports our aspiration of achieving ISO 14001 certification
• Continue to work with individual suppliers to reduce energy consumption, waste and carbon footprint