Building block 4 Embedding green procurement into operations Turning green corporate goals into procurement action remains a persistent challenge. While nearly all large companies have set environmental targets, embedding these into procurement is a different story. Most companies still rely on traditional sourcing criteria, quality, cost and delivery, making it difficult to resolve trade-offs between cost, resilience and sustainability. Without deliberate integration into operational processes, sustainability commitments often fail to reach the categories and contracts where they matter most. Part of the challenge is structural. In many companies, procurement processes, templates and tools were never designed with sustainability in mind. Category strategies often omit environmental considerations and supplier selection rarely prioritizes sustainability. Buyers lack visibility into sustainability data, whether emissions, land use, or material efficiency, making it hard to assess trade- offs or identify good partners. Even when policies exist, enforcement is uneven, contract clauses go unused, sustainability questions in common sourcing tools (RFx)11 are generic and post-award tracking is limited. Compounding these issues are inadequate process ownership and operational clarity, where sustainability responsibilities are unclear or inconsistently applied across sourcing workflows, and where communication across the supply chain is often fragmented or insufficient. To overcome these barriers, leading companies are embedding sustainability into the full procurement lifecycle. They treat it not as a one-time initiative, but as a fundamental shift in how procurement operates, supported by updated category strategies, redesigned RFx templates and robust supplier qualification and monitoring practices. Leading companies structure their approach around five key steps in the standard sourcing cycle (summarized in Figure 6): 1. Pre-RFQ phase. 2. RFQ design and launch. 3. RFQ analysis and negotiations. 4. Awarding and contracting. 5. Supplier management. If you wait for the procurement process to implement sustainability, it’s already too late. You need to define your sustainability roadmap years in advance to ensure solutions are in place when sourcing decisions need to be made. Ørsted Green Procurement Playbook: The CPO’s Guide to Delivering Value for Business and Planet 31

Green Procurement Playbook 2025