ARAMARK held a unique quarterly Corporate Responsibility (CR) Supplier Forum last month, involving sixteen of its top suppliers including blue chip companies Nestle Professional, Cadbury PLC, PepsiCo UK & Ireland, Coca Cola Enterprises, Unilever, Tetley, EcoLab, Fairfax Meadow, Pauleys, Allied Bakeries, Spring Fine Foods, 3663, Bunzl, and M&J Seafoods.
The Forum was held at ARAMARK’s Innovation Centre, giving its suppliers the opportunity to discuss what CR means to each individual company, what the industry as a whole is already doing and how it affects every element of the supply chain.
"The Forum is a unique initiative we have developed over the last year to inspire our suppliers - who are already in most cases hugely committed to large scale CR programmes - to set even more real and achievable CR objectives. The mere idea of getting all our suppliers in one room was and is fairly radical thinking. It has been so successful that as a result I was invited - alongside Unilever - to present at the BITC Business Action on Health Group, which was aimed at encouraging businesses to engage with its supply chain as part of the focus on creating a healthy workplace agenda," explains Val Carter, Corporate Responsibility Director at ARAMARK.
"As expected, at first individuals were nervous about being sat next to 'the competition' but once we explained it was not about sharing trade secrets, but a Forum to enable free and open communication to help us all to develop CR best practice, the response was extremely positive."
This particular Forum meeting focused on setting deliverable objectives for each supplier. The day was split into breakout sessions and each company representative was able to brainstorm with its peers and then it set three measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
"We knew setting three KPIs wouldn't be as easy as it first seemed, and that is why it was so important to get everyone together to inject a fresh burst of ideas. And it worked! By early afternoon, each company had managed to identify and logistically work out how they would manage to deliver each target and in what timeline. Excitingly, the ideas ranged from measuring and reducing packaging waste, reducing deliveries, raising awareness of ethically sourced produce, to encouraging employee wellbeing by promoting breakfast at work. People certainly did not shy away from setting challenging objectives," continued Carter.
The next stage in the process is for attendees to go back to their company and confirm the KPIs and then set about implementing the targets. Progress will be reviewed at the next ARAMARK CR Forum in July 2008 to ensure that all the targets are in progress and all parties are on course to deliver on their commitments.
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