Green Procurement Playbook 2025

Building block 5 Supplier engagement For many companies, the bulk of their environmental impact lies within the supply chain. Yet engaging suppliers on sustainability remains difficult, particularly as supplier maturity, capabilities and incentives vary widely. While some large suppliers view sustainability as a differentiator, many small or regional vendors lack the expertise, data or resources to act, so procurement struggles to apply consistent expectations or to scale up decarbonization.13 Reliable emissions data is another persistent hurdle. Most companies still depend on spending-based estimates or generic averages for scope 3 reporting, as supplier-specific data, especially at the product level, is scarce and costly to collect.14 Suppliers often resist new reporting demands, citing limited capabilities, unclear value or data privacy concerns.15 Many also note that buyers request information in inconsistent formats, creating friction and duplicate work. Regional and category-specific constraints further complicate efforts. In some regions, limited access to low-carbon materials or cheap green energy can slow progress even when suppliers are willing. This problem is acute for materials not globally traded. Adding to the complexity, large companies often work with thousands of suppliers, making it impractical to engage all of them in depth. Figure 7 outlines five steps to be taken towards building an effective supplier engagement programme. It is based on the Net-Zero Value Chain Support Hub, a publicly available resource developed by the World Economic Forum to support scope 3 upstream decarbonization. While this playbook focuses on strategic guidance for executive leaders, the support hub offers practical tools for operational teams. This framework has been used to structure the best practices that follow. The relative difficulty of each step is also mapped, based on insights from interviews and engagement with CPOs undertaken as part of this report. This approach can also be applied to other environmental priorities such as water use, deforestation or waste. We don’t just impose sustainability requirements on suppliers; we work with them, provide guidance and ensure they have the tools to meet our expectations. A collaborative approach is more effective than a purely compliance-driven one. Ørsted Supplier engagement programme – standard approach FIGURE 7 Critical Moderate Regular— Secur e buy-in from key sponsors (e.g. CFO, leadership team). — Launch pilots to test feasibility , refine and scale up programmes.— Define data requir ements and sour ces.— Assess supplier sustainability maturity .— Develop detailed supplier engagement plan.— Identify category-specific levers and best practices. — Conduct joint workshops to explor e abatement strategies.— Reach out to suppliers to align on targets and expectations.— Segment suppliers by sustainability and business criteria. — Define supplier archetypes and tailor engagement strategies.— Secur e supplier commitment to advance decarbonization efforts.— Outline decarbonization roadmap (e.g. levers, milestones, targets).— Create initial baseline via spend-based or average- data methods. — Identify emission hotspots plotting supplier/category emissions. — Impr ove accuracy over time by collecting direct supplier data.— Define interaction model (e.g. resour ces, meetings, tools, point of contact).— Develop business case to assess cost-benefit and impact.— Shar e knowledge and best practice across suppliers. — Communicate progress on goals throughout the organization.— Offer training, resour ces and tools to support implementation. — Establish incentives and recognition programmes. — Set up reporting and monitoring systems to track progress.Establish emissions baseline and identify hotspotsSegment and prioritize suppliersSupport suppliers and monitor pr ogressEngage with suppliers and explor e decarbonization leversLaunch pr ogramme and define interaction model1 2 3 4 4 Challenge intensity Source: Net-Zero Value Chain Support Hub, 2024; Kearney, 2025.