Episode 11: Building Net Zero Supply Chains with Collaboration: Insights from Oliver Hurrey

[00:00:00] Gareth Burch: What would your top three tips for successful collaboration look like for our listeners?

[00:00:06] Olliver Hurrey: Number one is be prepared to do something because the temptation, I think it’s a natural human being thing, is to talk about something lost. We’ve all been in those meetings where we felt like we talked about something lost and you’ve got that person in the corner going, I don’t know what we need to do, can we just do it please?

[00:00:21] And so they treat collaboration as having, as doing stuff. And be prepared that that conversation, that exercise is all about doing, not just about talking. The second thing I would say is.

[00:00:33] Sian Lloyd: The Powering Procurement Podcast is brought to you by Atamis.

[00:00:43] Hello and welcome to Powering Procurement, a podcast by Atamis, where we unpack the world of procurement and supply chain management with the help of industry leaders. I’m your host, Char Lloyd, and this is our resident expert, Gareth Birch.

[00:00:57] Gareth Burch: Hi. After 20 years in procurement, I may be billed as an expert, but believe me, I’m here to learn to.

[00:01:04] Sian Lloyd: Each episode. Together with our expert guests, we’ll dive into specific challenges and opportunities facing the procurement industry today,

[00:01:13] Gareth Burch: and we’ll explore easy wins and longer term strategies to help you rise to the challenge of driving value through your work while showcasing the power of procurement.

[00:01:24] Sian Lloyd: So let’s get going. Welcome to Powering Procurement. Today, we are thrilled to be joined by Oliver Hurry. Oliver is a leading voice in sustainable procurement. Driving key initiatives like the Sustainable Procurement Pledge, the Scope 3 Peer Group and the Nature and Biodiversity Peer Group. With a wealth of experience helping businesses innovate and lead on sustainability, Oliver has become a trusted guide for organisations looking to create a meaningful environmental and social change.

[00:02:00] Gareth Burch: Today we’ll explore his journey, his insights into the role of procurement And how procurement tackles global challenges and what innovations shaping the future of the profession. Welcome to the podcast, Olly.

[00:02:15] Olliver Hurrey: Thank you very much. It’s wonderful to be here. And, uh, obviously I know you, Gareth, for a fair while and it’s lovely to meet you, Sean.

[00:02:20] But yeah, it’s a pleasure to be on here.

[00:02:22] Sian Lloyd: Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Olly. And we’d like to give you your dues. That’s what we do for all of our guests here on the Power and Procurement podcast. So wonderful to meet you. And we’re really looking forward to hearing more about you, your priorities and, you know, how you see the challenges in this sector going forward.

[00:02:40] To begin, I guess, let’s begin at the beginning. Um, and it would be great to hear about what inspired you to go into the area of sustainable procurement to start off with.

[00:02:52] Olliver Hurrey: Starting, uh, in an events business. And one of the first clients I had was the chart and shoot of purchasing supply or purchasing procurement supply.

[00:03:01] I’m not sure what they’re called now, what they were called then, but I know they’ve changed their name, but SIPs as they well know. So, um, I helped create the kind of meet the buyer concept, uh, of events where essentially procurement professionals would come into a room, uh, give us a list of things that they wanted to sort out and solve, and then we’d sort of convey about speed dating.

[00:03:19] Do I, uh, Sort of level of people into sort of pitch to them. Um, and I love doing that and I got to make, know lots of procurement professionals, um, a few late nights over a few beers with them, uh, these events, and you get to understand the, the nature of procurement professionals, the, the challenges that they face, uh, the skills that they have, you know, the abilities they have, the.

[00:03:42] The, the approach that they take, but also in many ways how perhaps they weren’t as, uh, I suppose enabled or empowered or as respected in some cases they should be. I always felt that impression that they were a profession that probably wasn’t respected as much as they should be for what they do. Um. So that was, that was a first foray.

[00:04:03] Uh, I then started to look around at sort of new topics, uh, for hot topics that I could run a summit or conference on and read about carbon footprinting in the FT, I think it was about 20 years ago, almost to the day. And, uh, I knew nothing about sustainability, really. My parents read the Guardian, but that was about as, uh, that was the bottom, that was about as strong a background as I had in.

[00:04:26] In being an eco warrior. Uh, but, um, No, I knew there was something in this, and I, I started a carbon footprinting event. This was 20 years ago. And then literally a few months before the event happened, the, uh, chairman of Tesco at the time, Sir Terry Leahy, came out in the press and said that he was going to carbon footprint every single product on their shelf.

[00:04:47] 20 years, it’s laughable now, let alone 20 years ago. And so, that kind of exploded. Um, and that, that took off. And then a few years later, I mean, events and conferences drain you quite strongly. So I knew I wanted to get into the subject of, and it felt very purposeful. And over the years, I realized that I could bring those two professions together, procurement and sustainability, because sustainability professionals are another profession that perhaps is.

[00:05:15] Often underappreciated and sort of stuck in the corner a little bit. I think it’s all about saving the world and procurement is just about saving cost. So the two professions that actually have quite a lot in common. Um, and I realized that sustainability professionals had spent so many years trying to engage procurement and finance and proper business operational functions.

[00:05:35] Um, and procurement at the same time was almost having a bit of a midlife crisis and felt that. Yeah, particularly over the last few years with COVID, they’re almost as famous as ever, but still kind of on the front page, but still underappreciated. So I feel like sustainability has given procurement a, an exciting new arena.

[00:05:56] It’s not that new, but an exciting angle and lens to look through that has elevated the profession in the last few years to. Really gain more confidence, gain more respect, uh, gain more excitement to the role, it’s more than just cost now. Um, so yeah, that brings us perhaps a little bit more up to date.

[00:06:13] Sian Lloyd: Yeah, fascinating. I mean, Gareth, is that something that you are understanding and sort of would agree with, I suppose?

[00:06:21] Gareth Burch: No, absolutely. Um, in my career, if I go back 20 years ago, I was just starting out in procurement and it was about cost savings every day of the week, cost saving, cost saving. Fast forward.

[00:06:36] It is literally now, uh, procurement is much wider. We focus on much more issues than we’ve probably ever focused on. Um, and these issues are real life issues. They are, we’re make, we not just save money for a company, but we can make a positive impact and areas such as, um. Carbon emission reduction, uh, businesses are signing up to targets and they bring in sustainability managers and how do you coordinate two, um, almost unappreciated functions to a degree to deliver something.

[00:07:13] And the best way to do it is in collaboration. And so I got, I was lucky. I attended, um, Ollie’s event last year. Um, I couldn’t attend this year, unfortunately, but it was great because you had People around the table from both sustainability and procurement backgrounds with the same, how do we fix this problem?

[00:07:34] And you could see that discussion naturally coming through on the day. And it was great to be a part of, and great to see as well, because both support each other. Both have the same challenge and it’s slightly different sustainability. Uh, people have to focus on one, two, and three procurement is focused really on two and three, but the three is how’d you do scope three?

[00:08:02] How do we calculate that? Um, in collaboration, we. We can, we can deliver it.

[00:08:08] Sian Lloyd: Really fascinating to get both of your insights there just to, to start the podcast off really. A really good foundation perhaps for carrying on the conversation and Ollie just picking up on that, we heard the word challenges there.

[00:08:21] What are the priorities and perhaps the key challenges in your view?

[00:08:26] Olliver Hurrey: The challenges are key. I mean, I think the, um, when I talk to both procurement professionals and sustainability professionals about the challenges and the work that I do. Actually sees a lot of these individuals submit problems to me, almost like a therapist, really every month.

[00:08:40] So they submit challenges, they submit problems, and we look at all of the data from those challenges that being submitted because this place, it’s things moving so fast. And the number one challenge, the most popular, and it has been for five years, is supplier engagement. Because the The, the, the ability to engage suppliers, whether it’s to get them to comply, get them to give you data, get them to God forbid actually change anything and, uh, you know, actually improve all of that is a needs supplier engagement.

[00:09:12] The word supplier engagement is quite loaded. I think it kind of means lots of things to different people. It’s traditionally meant sending lots of surveys to them, um, bludgeoning them into submission to give you some information that you won’t use. Um, all the way through to now, what you see, which is sort of grand collaborative supplier engagement events and webinars and activities, which, um, are all very nice, but of course.

[00:09:38] Everyone’s running their own supplier engagement days with the same suppliers. So you end up with suppliers, not just being sent a million different surveys and now having to attend a million different supplier engagement days. So some of the principles, uh, and some of the approaches have changed, but some of the problems still remain.

[00:09:53] We’re still not really empathizing with suppliers and their ability to do things. Um. Whilst we try to sort of say, look, you need to meet these regulations. We need this data. Um, and, and so on. So I think a lot of the chain challenges around supplier engagement, inevitably we have to talk about data. Um, uh, data is always there.

[00:10:13] It’s a shame that we’re so fixated with the word data in this space, because. When everyone says it’s all about data, it suggests that it is actually all about getting some numbers together and staring at them on a page and feeling glad that they’re fairly accurate. When, of course, when it comes to saving the world and improving people’s lives and cutting costs and risks and impacts in supply chains, you need that data to actually mean that something will change.

[00:10:39] Because, you know, having some accurate numbers on a, on a spreadsheet you’re very proud of is pointless unless you actually make decisions to make those numbers go down. And you can prove that those numbers have gone down and evidence that those numbers have gone down. So I think the fixation with data is understandable, but it’s actually insights and action we actually need.

[00:10:59] So completely pointless to collect data if it tells you to do something that is really obvious that you could have done two years ago. Um, so investing in renewable energy with your supply chain, for example. You can collect all the data you like, and it will still always tell you that that’s a no regret, no brainer action.

[00:11:16] So get on and do it and stop treating it as a next step after collecting data. So I think that’s another obvious one. I think for the sustainability professionals and those working on carbon and decarbonization, procurement engagement is always a top challenge. And I always think that supplier engagement starts with procurement engagement.

[00:11:34] You can’t engage your suppliers unless you’ve got procurement on site, because they are the gatekeepers, they are the relationship managers, they are the people that talk and work with these suppliers, and can negotiate and have skills to work with them. Ultimately, procurement has to be experts on everything these days, and they can’t be.

[00:11:51] So sustainability’s role is to make it easy for procurement to understand how these things, uh, what they mean for the business, what they mean for the targets, and then help procurement translate all of that jargon and sustainability stuff into language they understand. Into cost, into risk, into pricing, into, uh, contracts, into sourcing.

[00:12:14] Uh, and if procurement can be that translator and understand that it’s all about value, then sustainability will get what it wants, which is action in the supply chain. Um, and you know, good things happening that ultimately benefit both risk, cost, impact, all of these things.

[00:12:31] Gareth Burch: And picking up on your challenges, obviously, uh, procurement and sustainability collaboration can also link and benefit all of those supply questionnaires, because.

[00:12:46] I’ve, in my experience, seen that different areas send different questionnaires to suppliers at points, which we want the information opposed to, uh, hello, Mr. Supplier, yes, we want to work with you, please complete an onboarding assessment, which gives us insight. At that point, then it becomes easier to manage and maintain that relationship, that right data level.

[00:13:11] But one of the points you rightly picked out, and, um, I spoke about it a bit at the SIP sustainability panel I was on, uh, in October was very much, what are you going to do with the data? And, and it’s a challenge I have from a procurement perspective. What does this data, why do we need the data? Can we explain it and articulate it to the supplier?

[00:13:34] Why we need it successfully and how are we going to use it? Because I know for a fact, and I’m not gonna pretend I’m, I’m not, um, innocent in this, um, I had a due diligence questionnaire based on risk. Um, and that is literally looking at the supply of risk to the business. And I think the questionnaire had 300 plus questions on it and they went into different areas.

[00:14:02] It was a company, uh, and business related, it went into security and data protection. Uh, modern slavery, so you’re kind of going into all these areas, but then each one, you’re giving a broad brush, you’re a strategic risk, you’re getting all of that, opposed to, you’re actually, you’re a strategic risk over here.

[00:14:24] But from an environmental perspective, you’re actually all right, but we don’t kind of, I think that’s the gap at the moment. One of those biggest challenges, how do you identify and de risk that with the right information? But it comes from challenge, uh, your third challenge, you have to collaborate.

[00:14:44] Olliver Hurrey: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:45] I, I, I think, um, I’m getting to the point now where I’ve, I’ve meticulously on decarbonization, but I think this is true for all topics in sustainability. And, and, and to be honest, I had to fill out an absolutely insane it, um, question, a security questionnaire to supply a company of the day as a one man band with a laptop.

[00:15:04] You know, I had like 20 odd questions about stuff I’d never even heard of, uh, and I just put not applicable on every question and left it at that, and hopefully I’ve made it through, but I think that, you know, there are so many things that you shouldn’t be asking questions of your suppliers because the data is available publicly.

[00:15:21] So AI should be just scraping the internet for the answers to a good proportion of the questions you want to ask your suppliers. So. First of all, how can you make your questionnaire as small as possible? Like, what is all the things that you could just find out in other means? Cause it’s basically just lazy, sending them a survey, if you can use technology to get that information, that’s the first thing.

[00:15:42] I think the other thing is none of those, or almost none of those questions should be unique to you. Majority of those questions you’re asking suppliers should be worded in exactly the same way as all your other customers. So all the collaborative groups that I run, all the meetings that I chair, whether it’s on nature or scope three or whatever, they’re always saying, can we just align on questions?

[00:16:03] Can we just get the questions right? Can we just get the jargon right? And suppliers are like, oh, please, I mean, less surveys would be good, but at least get the questions aligned. So, don’t ask questions if you don’t need to ask them. Make sure each question, actually, you check that with your peers. So, collaborate with your peers to say, these are the sorts of questions we’re asking, what questions are you asking?

[00:16:23] Get those aligned. Um, and just, it’s like any survey ever. Have a proper think about what you’ll actually do with the answer to a question. Because if you’re not going to do anything with it, don’t ask it. I mean, it’s utterly pointless. So this is all obvious stuff. Um, but I, I think, again, it’s this feeling that it’s a process.

[00:16:42] You ask for data, you collect data, and then you take action on that data. I think it’s more about streams of activity that are concurring. You engaging your suppliers to ask them about, you know, uh, renewable energy, or what sort of low carbon, high carbon materials they think they’ve got, or various different things.

[00:17:00] You should be just asking, having that conversation over the phone with them, you know, asking them anyway. It’s a, it’s a concurrent exercise, supplier engagement, data collection, and too often people see it as one step after the other, and that’s just wasting time.

[00:17:14] Sian Lloyd: Olly, you mentioned AI there. It’s something we have spoken about on this podcast a number of times, as you would expect.

[00:17:22] In terms of this particular podcast now, how could AI and data driven technologies, do you think, help organisations particularly reduce scope 3 emissions and also in terms of fostering these stronger supply collaboration activities you’ve just been mentioning?

[00:17:41] Olliver Hurrey: Yeah, perfect timing, as I said about a week ago.

[00:17:45] We literally had 80 people in a room for two hours talking only about the use of AI to track and reduce carbon in supply chains. So, uh, hopefully I can remember all the wonderful stuff that was shared, uh, while I stood there, uh, looking slightly confused on occasions, but no, it was It was fascinating.

[00:18:02] And of course, that’s the number one question on everyone’s lips is how can we use technology and especially AI to make all our lives easier and to achieve things much faster than we’ve ever achieved them before, because that’s the challenge we’ve got on climate is we need to do something absolutely mad in terms of pace and depth and, uh, you know, much faster than we’ve ever done before.

[00:18:22] So let’s be clear, AI is going to achieve that. And I’m sure there’s people listening and going, Oh, well, what about AI’s energy consumption? And the fact that, you know, that’s going to hugely spike. Yeah, of course, we need to deal with that. You can imagine every sustainability professional, particularly the darker green ones, are saying that to me.

[00:18:39] Well, you know, AI is going to destroy the world, let alone save the world. Well, yeah, okay. But there’s literally no other option, um, for us to achieve the rate of improvement. Um, let’s just hope that they can make it, uh, less energy intensive at the same time. But the, yeah, the use cases I saw and heard last week were incredible.

[00:18:55] I think. The, the workshop was called AI for Scope 3, but the follow up workshop to that meeting is all about how do you make sure the people in the business are focused on actual decarbonization. So there’s, therein lies the kind of message that I think came through is how do we use technology to do all the things that really are data driven?

[00:19:19] Um, there are things that people shouldn’t be getting bogged down with. There are things that ultimately will inform the actions that people will take. In conversation, in communication, in negotiation with each other, which is what procurement professionals do best, um, to actually drive action. So I thought that was particularly interesting.

[00:19:37] And what you’ve got is you’ve obviously got the ability to scrape the internet for data. So this comes back to the don’t ask questions that you don’t need to ask. Cause that was, that’s an obvious use case. Then you’ve got the ability to say, well, um, I need to interpret this data. So looking at the supply data and asking chat bots or, you know, little minions, I think was the, was the analogy.

[00:19:59] It’s like having grew with all of these little minions running around for you. Uh, so the idea of AI being all these little yellow individuals that are helping you out sometimes, I’m sure that’s a greatest analogy. ’cause they weren’t that effective or very good, were they? But anyway, um, so the, the idea is that ultimately you can ask these, these little minions to.

[00:20:16] Look at the data and start segmenting it for you so which suppliers should we do take which actions with it to be able to ask it you know okay what action should I be taking with the suppliers and for that information to be searching best practice and coming back to that professional saying well these are the things the ability for.

[00:20:36] AI and I use chat GPT just like this to say, give me this knowledge and this information in procurement language. If I was a procurement professional, or I’m not an expert on sustainability, the ability to, to interpret that. But ultimately I think the ability to understand. Uh, at scale, what suppliers are doing, what acts it tends to take with which suppliers to be able to quickly gather information you would not otherwise be an expert on to translate that into procurement and indeed the supplier language, you know, because the person on the other end is often a, an account manager or a commercial person who also is an expert on scopes free.

[00:21:14] So to be able to translate that information I think is absolutely critical. Um, so there was lots of interesting cases coming in, but I think at the heart of it, as all good AI conversations should be, it’s not about completely replacing people or procurement. It’s about allowing procurement and people to focus on the skills.

[00:21:34] That they’re best at and where humans and human interaction really can’t be replaced and that’s relationships It’s about negotiation. It’s about engagement

[00:21:45] Sian Lloyd: and in Gareth We’ve spoken about this a bit haven’t we over the course of the past few months really? And I know you’ve got your own views about it.

[00:21:53] Gareth Burch: It’s not about replacing people It’s about giving people the right tools to do their job more effectively, opposed to getting bogged down in the detail. And it’s interesting, some of the ideas, um, from that session, Ollie, for me, not quite, not black and white, but suddenly you’re actually benefiting from wider technologies like automation, um, and how AI can.

[00:22:17] Work on the top of the automation, on top of an automation layer to give you even more positive outcomes. Um, and when you think of people who’ve not started the, um, any form of carbon journey and the default position always seems to be spend based, um, assessments, actually. You could automate your spend based assessment to look at a carbon metric, to give you an footprint and give you a bit of a go.

[00:22:45] Have a look there, but then you pa you overlay AI into it. And ai, if you, depending on the data available such as invoice data, you could actually probably take spend based insights into a further layer where it probably has never been before, where it starts looking at the actual item coming through.

[00:23:04] Can it match over here? Yes or no? Yes. Use this carbon metric. No default with a spend based metric. And suddenly you’re kind of taking spend based as a basic model, another layer down, which gives more confidence and with improvements in science based, uh, The science based targets and more item based carbon, um, assessments, it could be suddenly what could have been that basic view becomes really powerful.

[00:23:36] Olliver Hurrey: Yeah, absolutely. I think, um. It’s funny, I think, I think spend base is tricky. It depends on what sort of business you are. Okay, so if you are, obviously, if you’ve got a service based supply chain, then, you know, it’s not rocket science to work out where those emissions are, but it’s useful to use spend base.

[00:23:52] Now, if you’re in manufacturing, you’ve got to get to activity and product, you know, carbon footprints as soon as possible, because you’ll bark up a lot of wrong trees. I’ve told this story before, but there was a very, very large pharmaceutical company who came to me and said, You know, we’ve done our spend based analysis and we’re going to engage all of our consultants to ask them to fly less.

[00:24:12] It’s kind of like, well, of all the things that you, you could do with your supply chain, you’re going to focus on asking consultants to fly less. Um, it’s treasury how much pharmaceutical companies spend on consultants to, you know, let the data put it, churn it out. But so I think you’ve, you’ve got to be careful with spend data, but you know, certainly if you’re in the service based arena, then it definitely provides that.

[00:24:33] The other thought on AI is, um, One thing that came out of this workshop, you’ve got to be careful with it. Um, and I mean careful with it in the fact that, and this always makes me twitch slightly when I say this, but, you know, if you say something confidently enough, people will believe it. And that’s true with AI and people.

[00:24:50] And I think I’ve made a career of this, by the way. So that’s why I’m twitching a little bit. Um, but the realities are that, you know, you’ve got to question AI because it’s only based on the data that it’s got. And it can get very wrong. And I think that’s, again, where people have got to come in and sense check some of this stuff.

[00:25:06] It’s used as a guide. And obviously, you know, improve. There was another use case which I saw last week which I was fascinated by. And forgive my ignorance slightly, I think it’s called Curated Language Model, uh, program. But essentially what it was doing, looking at all the best practice in the world about things that factories can do to make reductions.

[00:25:29] So, fixing air compression, or conveyor belts, or LED lighting, or whatever it may be. And the idea was that it could search all the world’s best practice, engineering, playbooks, and everything else. And for any particular factory, produce an AI kind of, you know, sort of supported playbook that’s unique to them.

[00:25:50] Using all the best practice from around the world that’s tailored for them. So this idea of sort of using, um, you know, this information to create the ultimate playbooks. Because otherwise, again, people are stuck in downloading documents and guidebooks and sifting through them. Which I’m sure engineers love looking through manuals.

[00:26:08] But the realities are, they’d much rather be, have a spanner in their hand fixing stuff. So. I think the ability for technology to identify actual decarbonization levers, uh, and help make those things happen, and then allow that data to flow up and show that reductions are happening. And it’s activity data, which is, you know, if someone fixes something in a factory and they say that’s worked and they put that data in, that’s rich data.

[00:26:32] And particularly then if that data is able to be accessed anonymously by other factories around the world, that’s even better because that data has a second use. It’s about capability building in other factories around the world, not just providing data up to some higher power customer that ultimately, um, hopefully will do something with it.

[00:26:51] So I’m excited about the ability for data to flow around the suppliers, rather than just constantly sort of jessing up into the sky to go to the customers and, uh, hopefully being used for reporting or maybe even action. So I’m excited by that sort of use cases as well.

[00:27:09] Sian Lloyd: Yeah, really, really interesting and given us a lot to think about around the data.

[00:27:15] And also you mentioned collaboration across supply chains, which I know is also, you know, a great focus for you. Is there anything there that you can share with us that is perhaps a positive, a really good example of measurable success being delivered?

[00:27:32] Olliver Hurrey: Well, first of all, people talk about supplier communication, which is usually talking at them.

[00:27:36] Supplier engagement is talking with them. Supplier collaboration should be doing stuff with your supplier. That’s my opinion. Otherwise, you get stuck into just chatting to your supplier. That’s collaboration. It’s not collaboration. Actually doing something with them is collaboration. So there is wonderful examples of, of, of collaboration.

[00:27:52] There’s a whole, uh, and again, that’s my job to track these examples. So there’s a few happening at the moment. The automotive industry, uh, has just launched a really fascinating program, uh, with some guys called trio, which is essentially capability building the entire, uh, or providing opportunity for the automotive industry supply chain to access renewable energy and understand how to finance it, how to understand how to buy it.

[00:28:16] And that is a bunch of automotive OEMs and first tier manufacturers working together to collectively engage their suppliers and giving them almost no excuses left in terms of understanding how to invest in renewable energy. So I think that’s one great example. There’s a, it was a really good example from last week from the meeting that I was at, which, um, was a bit unexpected.

[00:28:39] So we had a CBRE who is the property company. So they came in and they brought a supplier with them. And that supplier was a painting and decorating company. So they had the sustainability coordinator from a painting and decorating company and I, and I think most people in the room were like, okay, this is going to be interesting.

[00:28:57] You had all these massive multinationals in the room and this guy, Ben, he absolutely killed it. And the way that he described it was the CBRE had made it clear to them. They wanted to see sustainability and decarbonization in all of their suppliers, whether they’re painting decorators or tech or whatever it may be.

[00:29:17] And he told the story about it being competitive advantage to them. So he said, look, we didn’t just see it as an exercise where we were being semi questionnaire. We didn’t just see it as an exercise where we were being tick box exercise, tell us to do something. We said, look, if we get this right, this could be a competitive advantage for us.

[00:29:35] And they came back and they said, well, this is great, well, if you allow us to use different paint on your buildings, then we can actually cut this amount of carbon. It allowed them to go to their own suppliers and say, we need, you know, new options for our painting and decorating. They said that, you can imagine, the average painter and decorator’s been using the same paint for 20 years and he refuses to use any other paint.

[00:29:59] So engaging a load of painters and decorators about changing their paint would be an incredibly difficult thing to do. So this painting and decorating company engaged their suppliers and said, Can you just remove that paint from the platform where we buy? So, it’s, like, not an engagement thing, it’s just basically you can’t use it anymore, sorry.

[00:30:16] You know, that’s just the way it is. And it’s just the way that this, this guy spoke about how they’d engaged their own suppliers on behest of their customer to create a competitive advantage where they’re now seen as a company. One of the absolute gold standard suppliers when it comes to stain, which you know, put on stage in front of 400 other people who I’m sure would buy painting and decorating it was the story of a competitive advantage.

[00:30:41] So there’s almost a story of customer engagement rather than supplier engagement, which inspired me. And the fact that it was a sort of multi tier conversation. You had, you know, the people who supply the paint and so on. We even had one of the paint companies in the room stand up and say, That’s an amazing story, we’d like to talk to you because we’re probably one of your suppliers and you know, we can think about how we could help you talk to the property companies and so on.

[00:31:03] And of course, most of the people in the room By their offices from CBRE or GALEL. So we had almost four tiers of, of, of conversation in that room about how it wasn’t just about box ticking. It wasn’t just about cost. It was about competitive advantage. It was about more relationships. It was about stronger business.

[00:31:21] It was about, um, yeah, it was a, it was a really good example. So plenty of collaboration happening on supplier engagement, plenty of value chain collaboration happening at multi tiers, which I think is. Really where you get stuff done, particularly if you can get procurement involved in each of those levels.

[00:31:37] So yeah, a couple of examples off the top of my head anyway.

[00:31:40] Gareth Burch: Out of curiosity, because we have mentioned collaboration and different examples of collaboration. What would your top three tips for successful collaboration look like for our listeners?

[00:31:53] Olliver Hurrey: Ooh, that’s a good one. Uh, number one. And I’ve kind of hinted at it, is be prepared to do something.

[00:32:04] Because the temptation, I think it’s a natural human being thing, is to talk about something lost. We’ve all been in those meetings where we felt like we talked about something lost. And you got that person in the corner going, I don’t know what we need to do, can we just do it please? Uh, and so, the, the, treat collaboration as having, as doing stuff.

[00:32:21] And be prepared that that conversation, that exercise, is all about doing. Not just about talking. That’s the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say is, particularly for peers, you must agree where you compete, be first, before you agree where you collaborate. And, um, because if you can understand where that competition line is, and you can say, Right, we are going to not collaborate on, you know, certain materials or how good, And you can imagine in the automotive industry and the pharmaceutical industry, it gets very kind of tense if you don’t get this right.

[00:32:56] So, That’s the first thing is agree where you’re going to compete and then you can agree where you can collaborate. And I think that happens with buyers and sellers as well agree where we’re going to focus on price and everything else, but the rest let’s talk about value. So I think that’s another kind of recommendation.

[00:33:11] Um, and I think, uh, I think I’ve seen more and more examples of that working pretty well. In fact, there’s a lot of companies still who say to me, we can’t collaborate with our peers. It’s impossible. And I reel off all of these really tough industries that are at each other’s throats and say, well, these guys all are.

[00:33:30] So getting over that mental hurdle that you’re not allowed to collaborate, um, it’s just not true. Um, this is pre competitive space, mostly, um, get on and, uh, get on and do it. I think the final bit of collaboration is. And it’s kind of linked to the first one is when I see collaboration in supply chains and I see collaboration with Peter peers on decarbonization, I see so many meetings happening before they arrive at the obvious things.

[00:34:04] So this is coming back to that message. I think I shared earlier, which is about there are some really. Obvious things that you should just do. And often collaboration is a journey and you go on a conversation with these people, but start with the really obvious things and just do them because by doing stuff together, that’s really obvious.

[00:34:24] You don’t waste time talking about it, but you actually start on a basis of let’s do something. And then once you’ve done that thing, it might be a quick win, you know, it might be investing in renewable energy. Again, it might be talking to the supplier about getting, setting a science based target, some really obvious stuff.

[00:34:40] Once you’ve started that conversation, you know, it, it, it blossoms. I, I, I think there’s another story to tell, which I think is quite, again, very timely. So in the last 12 months, ever since that meeting you came to Gareth back in 12 months ago, over 200 sustainability procurement professionals have been working together embedding carbon pricing into tender decisions.

[00:35:01] And we produced a four page document. It’s live now. It’s only two weeks old. And a couple of dozen companies are already piloting this approach to putting carbon pricing into tenders. So the idea being that when you tender, unless you can provide carbon data, product carbon footprint data to the person running the tender, they will guess.

[00:35:22] Basically, your carbon, they’ll take your emission factor and add 50%. And that’s bad. That’s usually a bad thing. So, just, it incentivizes the suppliers to provide that information. And the decision will still be made on cost. The decision will still be made on quality. All of those are things, but carbon will now be a factor.

[00:35:41] And I think the ability for companies to collaborate on those principles for their companies to then collaborate with their suppliers and say, look, we are going to start judging tenders on carbon. We appreciate you probably haven’t got product carbon footprint data, but this isn’t about an exercise of you when you lose.

[00:35:58] It’s actually about saying it should give you the opportunity to go to your bosses and say, we need to start looking at carbon. We need to start measuring it because if we don’t, we’re going to be judged less favorably in these, uh, In these tenders. And I think whilst that’s a sharper end of collaboration, it is encouraging that sort of new conversations.

[00:36:18] And, uh, I think that’s a very exciting project to watch. And if anyone’s listening is interesting, you can go to. The Sustainable Procurement Pledge website, spp. earth, and everything is there. You can download the principles, start using them, and, um, yeah, I’m very proud of that.

[00:36:32] Sian Lloyd: Ollie, thanks for so many practical tips.

[00:36:35] I’m sure that our listeners are going to really appreciate that. Um, I want to quickly ask you a bit about one of your roles, which is, um, your work leading in the Nature and Biodiversity Peer Group. Why should procurement teams prioritise biodiversity? You know, what’s so important about that for them?

[00:36:54] And perhaps if you could give us a quick bit of advice, if somebody was thinking about getting on board with it.

[00:36:59] Olliver Hurrey: A very good question. So, uh, something that the sustainability world has been battling for some time is the intersection between climate and carbon and nature and biodiversity because they are interlinked.

[00:37:11] You know, the Amazon rainforest, for example, you know, you destroy that, you’re gonna make it far more difficult to reach. our climate change goals. So, you know, nature and biodiversity and climate fit together. But, for sustainability professionals, climate and scapegoat trees are confusing. Nature and biodiversity, it blows your mind.

[00:37:27] I mean, we’re dealing with everything from literally the birds and the bees through to, you know, mangroves and Uh, I mean it is utterly, it’s huge nature and biodiversity, there’s a huge amount, you’ve got all the oceans, the fish, the, the biodiversity there, you’ve got algae, you’ve got, it’s utterly mind blowing, and um, I think I’ve, I thought it was a good idea to start this group when enough people moaned about it at me, and then suddenly my brain has just had to sit there and, again, it’s, it’s a huge amount to consume.

[00:37:55] So what that means for procurement professionals who are just getting their heads around scope for re employment now, is you’re going, oh, there’s just one more thing. Uh, you just need to also worry about this. And then the procurement goes, oh, no, you had me for a second there, and now you’ve lost me. I’ve got to think about everything else as well.

[00:38:12] So it is really difficult. Ultimately, one of the most important things I think that I’ve understood, and I’ve learned over the last few years about nature and biodiversity, is it’s location specific. So it’s really about thinking about where you buy stuff and where it comes from, literally, the water basin that it’s in, the region that it’s in, the biodiversity in that region.

[00:38:33] Because if you’re destroying, uh, the, uh, or taking too much water or destroying too many forests, um, to, in order to get your product out of that. Then you’re basically creating an environment where not only are you affecting your carbon emissions, you’re actually in many ways destroying the community there.

[00:38:53] So you’re actually dealing with social challenges as well. And this is where social nature, you could say people and animals and plants, uh, and carbon emissions all comes together. And that’s where a procurement professional should not get too bogged down. I think in the, um, jargon and the legislation, you’ve got the EU deforestation regulation, which is really on the lips of everyone at the moment, which is going to.

[00:39:14] Force you to prove that your, uh, materials are come from areas that aren’t, uh, affected by deforestation. So it’s, it’s, there’s a lot of legislation, but really thinking about, okay, where is this stuff coming from? And if we continue to buy it in the way that we’re buying it and buy the things that we’re buying, how does it affect the whole environment there?

[00:39:37] Not just carbon emissions, but the environment and nature and also the people there, which I think is really important. There’s a, uh, a very famous company that makes condoms, um, and the famous brand. Uh, and they tell a wonderful story about this. So. They get their rubber from a rubber tree, uh, I think it’s in Thailand, if I remember rightly, I remember the story happening.

[00:40:00] And you’ve got this rubber tree that’s growing and they have to cut down the forest in order to grow the rubber trees and various things like that. What you’ve then got is elephants coming in to the plantations to get to the rubber trees, because rubber trees apparently are really good at absorbing water, so they’re going after the water and everything else.

[00:40:16] Then you’ve got the farmers, who really need the yield from the rubber trees, shooting the elephants. And then you’ve got, you know, you say to farmers, look, I appreciate the yields and everything else, and, you know, we’ve got to be careful about, you know, there’s water stresses from growing rubber trees because they suck up all the water.

[00:40:34] You’ve got to be careful about the elephants, so not shooting them, uh, and, um, you know, solutions like cheetahs. Apparently cheetahs scare elephants away, so you encourage biodiversity, you end up with more cheetahs, or jaguars, I think it actually is. I’m confusing my big cats here. I know that’s a fair mad story, but it starts to think about really how everything is connected.

[00:40:55] If you’re a buyer of latex, I think it’s probably the right phrase to use it, then you’ve got to consider elephants, you’ve got to consider jacuas, you’ve got to consider water, you’ve got to consider yields and payment and cost, you’ve got to consider deforestation. But it’s only when you have an understanding and a picture and an empathy with what’s happening on a latex plantation or rubber plantation to really understand the deal, the issues you’re dealing with, because if you ask a supplier to do one thing that may end up them shooting elephants, then you’re going to end up, you sort of squeeze one way and something else pops up.

[00:41:31] And this is where again, procurement skills to understand things holistically, uh, and understanding all of the details and pressures makes it, um, a big job, but one that I think is a little bit easier to get your head around.

[00:41:45] Gareth Burch: What impact do you hope this year’s event will have on the global procurement community?

[00:41:51] And how can the procurement professionals make the most of their participation to drive the meaningful long term change?

[00:42:02] Olliver Hurrey: Uh, wow. What a question. Uh, I appreciate that this is my baby a little bit and I’ve been running, I think it’s three or four years now that it’s been running and it’s an, an, um, it’s an extraordinary 24 hours.

[00:42:12] I mean, it just is absolutely extraordinary. And, um, for anyone who’s not experienced it. Do so. I mean, it is literally a 24 hour live marathon of it’s like, um, for anyone in Britain, it’s like red nose day. It’s the state of what we cure. It’s red nose day. It’s just a marathon of content and knowledge. I think the most important thing about it is that it’s about the profession of procurement.

[00:42:35] It’s giving pride is giving excitement. It’s giving fresh ideas. It’s giving you angles. It’s giving you lenses to any procurement professional in on the planet. The fact that it’s about people and planet and saving both of those things, of course that’s important. But for me, it’s far more important in many ways that it’s about the profession of procurement.

[00:42:56] It’s about giving them these, this special day where they get to really think about the future of their profession. The future of their career, the future of their, the day job that they have as well, the things that they do, the data that they collect, the conversations they have with suppliers. So yes, it’s about Stelio Resi.

[00:43:14] Yes. It’s got people on planet, but we have a stream of meetings throughout the day, which is only about the profession and the future of the profession. So it literally follows the sun. So we had the Fijian. Procurement team in the middle of the Pacific started last year talking about what they were doing on sustainability on the island of Fiji.

[00:43:31] I, I, I kid you not, it was quite incredible. And we go all the way around the world and each hour takes in a different kind of, not only a different geography, but a, but a different topic. And it’s all designed to be, again, very collaborative. You don’t just sit and listen. You can enter these meetings, chat with peers around the world.

[00:43:48] Um, I’m sure even you guys could learn something from the Fijian Procurement Team. Uh, so there’s a lot to be had from it, and just get involved, and even if you can’t attend the day itself or whatever, it’s again a bit like one of those charity marathons. Run your own events! You know, I’m gonna look at Atamis and say, are you gonna do something on Wildstone Procurement Day?

[00:44:09] I’m sure you will! Well, you will now, because I’ve made you do it, but It’s about thinking about how you can leverage this moment to do something cool, even if that’s just engaging your own teams, um, you know, doing something a bit different, you know, thinking about biodiversity, you know, getting people in the offices out to sort of look around the site at the factory and seeing what sort of biodiversity and what sort of, uh, uh, materials and things you have around you.

[00:44:33] So. There’s so much you can do, but use it is the big, big message and, um, yeah, make the most of it.

[00:44:41] Sian Lloyd: In terms of making procurement an attractive profession, particularly for younger people, um, and also for more diverse talent pools, is there any advice that you can give?

[00:44:54] Olliver Hurrey: I hear make procurement sexy a lot, um, and, uh, that’s very difficult for me to do, personally.

[00:45:01] Uh, maybe you, Gareth, as well, uh, if you don’t mind me saying. But, um, you know, procurement is cool, um, I think it, it’s this idea that it’s just about cutting costs. And I think the same is true for salespeople. I mean, very few people grow up wanting to be a salesperson. I think you, if you’re that sort of person that is got something about you, has got an attitude, a creativity, a passion, um, all of these things.

[00:45:30] And it’s just a, a brilliant. Individual rather than necessarily is worked their heart out on a specific professional, specific angle. I think, uh, both procurement and sales are for people that have got something about them as an individual. And I think that needs to be celebrated more. And I think it’s a stuffiness perhaps about certain professions.

[00:45:53] We all know, and I think most people in businesses know that it’s procurement and sales that really make. Those numbers at the end of the day, it’s the bottom and top line. And it’s a really about those numbers. And so every profession, um, should respect procurement and sales in the same way. Uh, and I think that, so I think it’s about championing the capabilities of procurement, the fact that it’s about such a myriad of skills and the ability to be not an expert, everything, but the ability to be.

[00:46:23] able to converse and to understand the basics of a million different topics, I think is really important. I think the final bit is the world is a mess, like, and it’s not getting any better. I mean, we’ve got, what, the Riviera of the Middle East. We’ve got all sorts of stuff being talked about now. Um, procurement is going to be absolutely up against it in many ways, but has already shown with COVID and other things that they are brilliant when they’re under pressure.

[00:46:53] A creative, skilled, and so I think this is even more, uh, an opportunity for procurement to shine and show because it’s procurement that will keep the lights on, it’s procurement that will keep the world turning, um, it’s procurement that will ultimately, in many ways, find innovative solutions to some of the world’s biggest, uh, fundamental challenges, do I say, um, I often say, you know, most of the world’s emissions are in supply chains, procurement runs supply chains, procurement’s going to save the world.

[00:47:23] Sian Lloyd: A big thought for our final question to lead into it, and particularly, I really like that word championing and Gareth, championing is something that we’re trying to do, particularly on the Powering Procurement podcast, isn’t it? Are you going to hand over that final question to Oli this time?

[00:47:39] Gareth Burch: Oli, final question.

[00:47:42] So why are you pleased that you chose a career in the procurement space?

[00:47:48] Olliver Hurrey: Uh, I do have an answer for that, and I think it’s after spending Uh, I would say over the last 20 something years, probably equal amounts of time with sustainability professionals and procurement professionals. The reason why I love procurement and I won’t swear, but I’ll say it and you’ll get the idea is you guys get stuff done and it’s not the sustainability professionals don’t get stuff done.

[00:48:16] It’s just quite often they can’t. And so procurement just gets stuff done better than any other profession I’ve ever known. And boy, do we need to get stuff done. And so just keep doing that. Um, yeah, again, I’ll come back to those meetings where you just sat in a meeting and sometimes it’s a sustainability professional.

[00:48:38] Sometimes it’s other people just talk and talk and talk and you’re sat there going, I know what we need to do. And you can see the procurement professional on the other side. And I think they, they’re feeling the same. And you know, that meeting could have been 10 minutes and we can make some stuff happen.

[00:48:51] So. That’s what I’m most proud of, uh, working with Procurement is, uh, they are putting into action urgently with skill and with passion, the things that we obviously need to do. And so that’s why, that’s why I love Procurement.

[00:49:04] Sian Lloyd: A really positive, great message to end the podcast and thanks for covering so much ground with us as well, Ollie.

[00:49:11] It’s been an absolute pleasure to meet you. Thank you.

[00:49:13] Gareth Burch: That wraps up this episode of Powering Procurement. We hope you enjoyed that as much as we did.

[00:49:19] Sian Lloyd: Visit our website@atmos.co.uk or follow us on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.

[00:49:26] Gareth Burch: Remember to subscribe on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, apple Podcast, or wherever you choose to listen.

[00:49:32] Sian Lloyd: Thanks for joining us and see you next time on Powering Procurement. The Powering Procurement Podcast is brought to you by Atmos Source to contract software designed to save you time and money. Choose the apps you need from pipeline and tender management to supplier and contract management. Get the tools to power up your procurement.

[00:49:56] Visit atamis.co.uk to learn more.