CAP conseil is a private company founded by Marie d’Huart and Serge De Backer, dedicated to sustainability consulting and advising. CAP’s team offers research and consultancy services relating to social responsibility, sustainable development, governance and business ethics. Very pragmatic, CAP develops topics including sustainable trade, responsible supply chain, climate and procurement strategies,… Active since 2003 in this area, CAP is a pioneer company in Belgium with a track record of more than 150 Belgian and international client companies, more than half of them being Belgian listed companies. CAP invests a lot in continuous training and updates regularly on the standards and tools faceting the world of sustainability and social responsibility. Currently, CAP represents Belgium in the development of the future ISO 20400 standard on sustainable procurement. The final version of the standard is expected for mid-2017.

1. ISO 20400
The future ISO guidance on
sustainable procurement

2. Introduction
• The standard draws from another guidance document, ISO
26000 on social responsibility
• Many people in different levels inside an organisation deal
in a way or another with procurement. To make sustainable
procurement (SP) a reality, each of these levels has to
understand what it needs to know and do to make it
effective and impactful.
• Its ambition is to explain to all types of organisations how
to include sustainability considerations into the
procurement management and practices.
• The final version of the standard is expected for mid-2017

3. General view of the standard
This International Standard assists organisations to
meet their sustainability responsibilities by
providing an understanding of:
• what sustainable procurement is;
• what the sustainability impacts and
considerations are across the different aspects of
procurement activity: policy, strategy,
organisation, process; and
• how to implement sustainable procurement
practically.

5. 1. Fundamentals
• Target audience: important for
everyone
• Content: answers to the questions
“what is SP” and the “why procure
sustainably”
• Description: describes the principals
of SP, summarizes the range of issues
and the reasons for undertaking SP.
Important considerations include
prioritization, risk management, due
diligence, influence and complicity.
Scope, principles and drivers of sustainable procurement

6. 2. Policy & strategy
• Target audience: actions and
responsibilities for the top management
• Content:
• Committing to Sustainable Procurement
• Aligning with organizational goals
• Adapting to the procurement context
• Managing implementation
• Description: the management of
organizations should align its sustainability
and corporate policies and strategies with
its specific procurement strategies and
policies. Public commitment and strong
governance are needed to set the tone and
organise the entire organisation towards a
better way to buy, procure and
subcontract.
How sustainability considerations should be integrated at a high
strategic level?
TO DO:
- Write a Procurement Policy or integrate the
procurement topic in the existant sustainability policy
- Integrate the procurement topic in the strategy
- Mapping the supply chain to have a better overview
- Operational implementation

7. 3. Enablers
Organizing the procurement function towards sustainability
Making sure that all the conditions are put in place for achieving SP
Target audience: middle management
Establishement of a clear governance
structure and clear accountabilities.
How to have a coherent approach
across the different products and
services purchased?
Enabling people through a supportive
organisational culture, performance management
(targets and objectives), training, development of
tools and guidelines and support.
Who has to be trained to SP?
The engagement with
stakeholders receives a special
attention, especially to include the
supply chain actors and reality in
the reflection.
Understanding of how its activities
can negatively or positively affect
others, and by providing a means
to avoid or mitigate those negative
impacts or explore positive
opportunities.
Risk management approach +
mapping sustainability issues to
purchase categories.
How to do a mapping of the supply
chain and make a societal risk
analysis per category?
Define sustainability goals and
targets and KPI’s, Monitor
performance and take corrective
action if necessary + reporting.
How to set up a dashboard?
Play an important role in mitigating
negative impacts in the supply chain
and providing access to remedy of
affected stakeholders.

8. Societal risk analysis per category

9. 4. Procurement process
Assess the experience acquired
and suppliers’ performance on all
relevant criteria including
sustainability, capture input from
customers then adjust policy
based on findings and finally,
develop recommendations with a
view to continual improvement.
1. Planning
Preparing a sustainable
sourcing strategy
2. Procurement criteria
definition
Integrating sustainability
in the specifications
3. Sustainability aspects
of supplier selection
Awarding the contract to a
sustainable supplier
4. Contract management
Managing the contract
sustainably
5. Contract review and
lessons learnt
Evaluating and improving
sustainability performance
Integrating sustainability into the procurement process
Target audience: actions to be undertaken by the buyers on a daily basis
Issue orders, monitor execution and
supplier payment performance. It is
important that contractual clauses
include sustainability criteria and are
agreed on. It is also important that
sustainable elements and associated
performance targets are communicated
and understood by relevant internal
stakeholders to ensure that any
sustainability commitments made in the
contract are fully implemented and
compliance is monitored.
Select suppliers on the basis of
a pre-agreed scoring
methodology that includes
principles of sustainability,
sustainability practices, life
cycle approach and of goods
and services lifecycle costs.
Define precise criteria reflecting the key
sustainability issues and include details
of specific technical environmental
features, production methods, the use of
specific criteria, as well as procedures for
verification of compliance.
Integrate sustainability
considerations at the outset by
identifying stakeholders, analysing
business needs, analysing the supply
market and analysing profitability
based on the approach of product
lifecycle and product cost data.

10. Ex. supplier selection

11. The needs of SME’s
Of course, many organizations are not
structured according these 3 former levels of
power. Special provisions address the needs of
SME’s to simplify the whole process and
encourage them to enter into the approach,
even informally.

12. CAP conseil
Experts in sustainability and social responsibility
Chemin du Stocquoy 3, 1300 Wavre
info@capconseil.be Ι 010 24 25 47