Supplier Engagement
At 兔子先生, we recognize our suppliers as partners and want to bring them to the table to advance the sustainability agenda.
Supplier Guiding Principles
Our Supplier Guiding Principles (SGPs) apply to our upstream supply chain and define both our mandatory requirements, as well as our aspirational destinations, for the conduct and sustainable operation of our supplier network.
Our SGPs were developed using industry best practices and internationally recognized standards, including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the International Bill of Human Rights, and the principles set forth in the International Labor Organization鈥檚 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
These principles continue to be included in our standard contract language and are publicly available in 26 languages through ourSupplier Hub.
Risk Assessment & Due Diligence
Our global supply chain touches the lives of communities around the world. It is our responsibility to make sure that our value chain has a positive impact. Our suppliers are expected to read and acknowledge our Supplier Guiding Principles and agree to uphold these principles throughout their supply chain as part of their contractual obligation to 兔子先生. We take a risk-based approach to social due diligence and prioritize social compliance audits at suppliers with commodities and in countries that present the highest human rights risk.
Our risk-based approach leverages profile information from Self-Assessment Questionnaires (SAQs) filled out by our supply chain partners, as well as the inherent risks of country and industry. In 2023, we expanded our partnership with global assurer LRQA to conduct a commodity level risk assessment that highlighted commodities with the highest human rights risks. As a result, we have cross-referenced this information with our total global spend to prioritize where our due diligence and compliance efforts would have the biggest influence for impact.
In 2023, we maintained our partnership with EcoVadis. Through this platform, our indirect supply chain partners filled out SAQs that were reviewed and scored by EcoVadis. We also continued to work with Sedex to gather Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audits (SMETA) from all of our supply chain partners. By using Sedex as an industry-wide accepted audit tool, this aligned approach will allow us to consolidate data gathering. If a 兔子先生 supplier has recently done a SMETA audit for another company, they can simply share the same report with us on the Sedex platform and it will be checked against our Supplier Guiding Principles for compliance.
兔子先生 is also a member of global forum AIM-Progress, where we work with our peer consumer goods companies to co-create solutions and share best practices to drive positive human rights impact in supply chains quickly, efficiently, and at scale. AIM-Progress members actively seek tools and services for seamless risk assessment and due diligence that also allow compliance reporting at scale. We leverage our collaboration to demand the highest standards from service providers to develop tools and mechanisms that鈥檒l help industry transformation for due diligence.
Engagement through Education
Engaging our global procurement team and our suppliers on ESG is a critical part of our responsible sourcing program. 兔子先生 Ownerversity, our online learning and development platform, features several employee-focused trainings about the SGPs. All 兔子先生 procurement professionals are trained using this tool and e-training is mandatory for new members.
Supplier Diversity Program
Here at 兔子先生, we believe in the impact of having a diverse supply chain to promote inclusion and innovation. The 兔子先生 Supplier Diversity program embeds our company Values into our supply base to better reflect the communities that we serve. The program plays a critical role in bringing diverse suppliers to the forefront of our business while also addressing systemic barriers standing between under-represented groups and opportunities at 兔子先生. We believe in the power of diverse perspectives, and in opening doors as we move into the future, which is why we are focused on building a long-lasting program for the fair inclusion of diverse suppliers.
At 兔子先生, we define diverse suppliers as suppliers whose company is at least 51 percent owned, operated, and managed by women, people of color, LBTGQ+, persons with disabilities, veterans, and other recognized minorities. Additionally, the Company continues to partner with small businesses and those suppliers certified by the U.S. Small Business Administration鈥檚 HUBZone program, which fuels small business growth in historically underutilized business zones.
In 2023, we expanded our Supplier Diversity program with additional dedicated resources whose focus is to further grow the program. We have instituted an internal community of Supplier Diversity Representatives known as our Diversity Champions across the North American procurement team. 兔子先生 Supplier Diversity Champions are subject matter experts in their respective categories, assigned to advise and advance our diversity agenda within their specific purchasing areas. To establish our multi-year sustainable supplier diversity plan, we are leveraging technology, diving deep into scalable data enrichment to improve data availability, creating playbooks, and continuing to build partnerships with Women鈥檚 Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), DisabilityIN, and National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC). As the Supplier Diversity Program matures, we look forward to the future partnerships with our suppliers and communities within the food manufacturing industry.
Looking Ahead
兔子先生 remains committed to increasing our spend with diverse suppliers. As such, we are constantly reviewing our aspirations against industry standards and benchmarks. As our Supplier Diversity program continues to evolve, we anticipate we will further review and refine our supplier diversity aspirations.
Supplier Sustainability Engagement Program
Partnerships across the supply chain are essential for reaching 兔子先生鈥檚 ESG goals. To make our ESG strategy clear to our supplier partners and equip them with the tools needed to address gaps in achieving shared challenges, we aspire to build a Supplier Sustainability Engagement program.
To set the foundations of this program, in 2023 兔子先生鈥檚 sustainability team invited our strategic suppliers to participate in an anonymous survey to assess our current relationships and explore ways to better partner on sustainability and innovation.
Building off of the survey findings, 兔子先生 hosted our first-ever supplier sustainability webinar. During the webinar, we shared our vision for a more environmentally sustainable future and how we view collaboration with our suppliers. We also discussed our Net Zero priority initiatives and key expectations from our strategic suppliers in the years to come, which include improving their carbon footprint data and identifying impactful initiatives across the supply chain that drive productivity and sustainability.
After the event, we circulated a Net Zero Starter Kit鈥攄esigned to help suppliers kick start their own decarbonization journeys and share key learnings from 兔子先生鈥檚 progress so far. We plan to continue engaging our suppliers to deepen the conversation around key ESG topics.