Winners of the elite Environment and Energy Leader Awards program, now it in its eighth year, are selected from across a variety of industries based on their success in providing significant sustainability and energy management results. With the 2020 submission deadline looming, we’re revisiting some of 2019’s Top Product of the Year Award and Top Project of the Year Award winners in case you missed them the first time around.
Prizes for winners include promotion across a wide audience of environment and energy management professionals, glowing quotes from unbiased judges across the industry to use in marketing materials (like the enthusiastic one below), air time during an exclusive webinar, and more.
Now, check out Environment and Energy Leader Awards winners Avetta and LafargeHolcim. Here’s what the judges had to say about the companies’ project, “Standardizing Supplier Evaluation and Ensuring Sustainability in Brazil”:
What the judges said…
“A new way to optimize and standardize supplier evaluation for operational efficiencies — and a useful way to address gaps in supply chain ESG knowledge throughout the industry.”
About the project: Swiss multinational LafargeHolcim manufactures building materials and sets sustainability, quality, and EHS goals for global operations. These goals include a “zero harm to people” principle prioritizing health and safety, and the development of sustainable products to help customers increase materials recycling and improve the energy efficiency of their buildings.
LafargeHolcim employs 2,400 employees and 2,300 contractors in its 80 Brazilian plants. The company selected Avetta to help with supply chain management there. Avetta provides SaaS-based solutions for supply chain risk management with the prequalification of contractors and suppliers. Before forming a partnership with Avetta, LafargeHolcim had been conducting supplier evaluation through e-mails and spreadsheets.
Avetta’s SaaS system offered a simple, objective way to measure a supplier’s record on social responsibility, human rights issues like bribery, corruption, and child labor, and other sustainability issues. Both companies worked to create a process for prequalifying suppliers that were focused on achieving LafargeHolcim’s sustainable goals. They configured the Avetta platform to match these requirements and standardize the supplier evaluation process specifically for Brazil. The automated system verifies that supplier answers to LafargeHolcim’s best practice questionnaires comply with those requirements.
If suppliers fall short of LafargeHolcim’s expectations, Avetta professionals assist them in closing those gaps. In addition, the system confirms that suppliers follow documented sustainability practices. If requirements are not met, Avetta’s sustainability professionals offer supplier coaching on implementing best practices.
Once a supplier is evaluated and prequalified for a job site or factory, this supplier does not need to be evaluated again for other job sites. This reduces paperwork for the contractor and LafargeHolcim staff. It eliminates the need to email pre-qualification forms and then manage various supplier files. The project also introduced the ability for LafargeHolcim to assess suppliers based on their human rights records. Previously, the company didn’t have enough personnel to perform this type of evaluation.
Don’t forget to enter this year’s Environment + Energy Leader Awards by December 30 for a chance to win a 2020 Top Project or Top Product of the Year Award.
