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UK property development and construction companies hope a pilot programme to reduce supply chain risk will shortly be taken up across their sector.
More than 20 such businesses met in late June to consider adopting sector-specific procurement guidelines initially developed by British Land and Land Securities in 2004.
The two FTSE 100 companies have now been joined by Bovis Land Lease, HBG Construction and Mace in piloting the guidelines, which seek to extend existing environmental standards to cover bribery and corruption, health and safety, equal opportunities, fair wages and the workplace.
Signatories also undertake to include information about their corporate responsibility policies in all pre-tender qualifying information and to request similar documentation from all those putting in a tender.
Unusually, the guidelines require suppliers to show they are paying wages ‘not less favourable than those observed by comparable employers’ in the source country.
‘The idea is to integrate these guidelines into our risk management systems,’ said Claudine Blamey, British Land’s corporate responsibility executive. A British Land internal working group is considering how to implement the guidelines in its own systems. As well as training its procurement staff, the company is discussing the guidelines with the principal furniture and cleaning suppliers for its London head office.
‘We are very keen not to send out questionnaires to our supply base,’ said Blamey, who advocates a more discussion-based approach with main suppliers. British Land has more than 4000 suppliers, mostly small or medium-sized enterprises.
Dave Farebrother, assistant director of environment services at Land Securities, stressed: ‘The idea is to bring everybody up to standard, rather than simply say that [suppliers] are in or they are out’.
BAA, Crown Estates, Hermes, Royal Bank of Scotland and Skanska are among organizations set to consider signing up to the guidelines, developed with help from the Upstream consultancy.
More than 20 such businesses met in late June to consider adopting sector-specific procurement guidelines initially developed by British Land and Land Securities in 2004.
The two FTSE 100 companies have now been joined by Bovis Land Lease, HBG Construction and Mace in piloting the guidelines, which seek to extend existing environmental standards to cover bribery and corruption, health and safety, equal opportunities, fair wages and the workplace.
Signatories also undertake to include information about their corporate responsibility policies in all pre-tender qualifying information and to request similar documentation from all those putting in a tender.
Unusually, the guidelines require suppliers to show they are paying wages ‘not less favourable than those observed by comparable employers’ in the source country.
‘The idea is to integrate these guidelines into our risk management systems,’ said Claudine Blamey, British Land’s corporate responsibility executive. A British Land internal working group is considering how to implement the guidelines in its own systems. As well as training its procurement staff, the company is discussing the guidelines with the principal furniture and cleaning suppliers for its London head office.
‘We are very keen not to send out questionnaires to our supply base,’ said Blamey, who advocates a more discussion-based approach with main suppliers. British Land has more than 4000 suppliers, mostly small or medium-sized enterprises.
Dave Farebrother, assistant director of environment services at Land Securities, stressed: ‘The idea is to bring everybody up to standard, rather than simply say that [suppliers] are in or they are out’.
BAA, Crown Estates, Hermes, Royal Bank of Scotland and Skanska are among organizations set to consider signing up to the guidelines, developed with help from the Upstream consultancy.
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