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Sustainable Supply Chains

A sustainable supply chain is one that aims to mitigate all negative environmental and social impacts to ensure the protection of people and the environment. Presently, businesses experience the largest volume of emissions within their Scope 3 and are proactively trying to calculate and respond to this. But negative social impacts in a supply chain can go unaccounted for due to a lack of traceability and transparency.

The shift to jointly assess the environment and social risks is occurring due to the new EU legislation such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the EU Green Claims Directive. These now require companies to be able to demonstrate sufficient evidence to support any sustainability claim across both social and environment.

BITCI support members to create more sustainable supply chains through

Using our Business Working Responsibly Mark as a framework, support member companies to map their supply chains, increase due diligence and transparency. Identify potential risks and provide guidance to mitigate.
Provide feedback on policies and procedures that are in place and identify any gaps.
Provide support with stakeholder engagement such as facilitate supplier engagement meetings and events or support internal working groups or committees.
Provide training for employees and or other stakeholders on human rights, modern slavery or climate action.

Many of our members have a complex value chain that includes many SMEs and while we do not offer a direct service for SMEs, we recognise that we can support SMEs indirectly through our members.

Climate Action Programme for SMEs Overview

This programme, now moving into phase 2, is led by BITCI, in collaboration with Business in the Community NI. Our partner businesses for 2025 will be Bank of Ireland, ESB and SSE Airtricity. This programme delivers accredited carbon literacy training and tailored support to help participants develop effective climate action plans. The programme is aimed not only at the SMEs in our members’ value chains but also at our members’ own employees. We want to collaboratively build capacity within our members’ organisations to bring their SMEs along with them as we transition to a fairer and more sustainable future.

Phase 2 builds on the pilot programme, ran in 2024, with our members Bank of Ireland Group, Musgrave Group, SSE Airtricity, and a sample of their SMEs.

Key findings and outcomes from the pilot included:

Improved Carbon Literacy and Climate Knowledge: By programme end, 93% of participants rated their climate knowledge as good or very good, up from 72%. Further upskilling, not only for SMEs, but for internal teams of larger companies to better support their supply chain decarbonisation and engagement is required.

Development of Climate Action Plans: Over half of the participating SMEs are now developing climate action plans, marking progress in actionable carbon reduction goals.

Supplier Engagement as a Key to Progress: Engaging with larger suppliers proved vital. According to a report by CDP and BCG ‘Corporates that engage with suppliers are 6.6x more likely to have a 1.5°C-aligned transition plan with Scope 3 target (upstream)’.

Sector-Specific, Tailored Support Benefits: Tailored, sectoral approaches to supplier engagement were particularly effective, especially for the 40% of SMEs in the food and drink sector.

Positive Outcomes in Decarbonisation and Supplier Engagement: The programme saw increased supplier engagement and steps towards carbon reduction, building capacity and readiness among SMEs for sustainable business practices.

You can read more of the key insights from the pilot here.

In phase 2, the ambition is to scale the programme.

The programme will be delivered through a series of group workshops and one-to-one mentoring sessions, using a ‘learning by doing’ approach to deepen understanding of both the challenges and the opportunities available. SMEs will leave the programme with a better understanding of the risks and opportunities faced by their businesses and how they can plan and take action when it comes to decarbonisation. The SMEs will be asked to commit to an action and will be supported post-training by a tailored resource pack and a peer network.

This programme aims to demonstrate how powerful supply chain decarbonisation can be when we come together. Through collaboration, upskilling, and empowering BITCI member companies and their suppliers, real progress can be made in supporting SMEs to reduce their carbon footprints. The work in this programme has informed the design and influenced the roll-out of our Accelerate, The Business Pact for Climate and Nature.

Watch the videos below to understand how effective this initiative was for those involved in the pilot in 2024. And follow us to see highlights and insights from phase 2.