MUTUAL RECOGNITION - LATEST ANNUAL BENCHMARKING SURVEY RESULTS
AIM-PROGRESS carries out an annual membership benchmarking survey of companies’ approaches to responsible sourcing, thereby identifying trends and allowing members to compare their programmes to their peers in the industry. The latest AIM-PROGRESS Member Benchmarking Survey was carried out in collaboration with BSR. The following highlights stood out:
- AIM-PROGRESS members continued to demonstrate progress in their responsible sourcing programs in 2018 with an impressive maturity leap: 50% of members are now identified as having ‘Integrated’ responsible sourcing programs, thereby being in the upper half of the maturity scale, whilst 15% can be considered as industry leaders on responsible sourcing.
- Human Rights are increasingly the focus area for AIM-PROGRESS companies: 73% of companies are implementing Human Rights frameworks, including the UN Guiding Principles, with the rest of the membership having work underway or in planning stage. This is almost a tripling from 2017, where only 24% of respondents reported having implemented Human Rights frameworks.
- Supplier assessments, in different shapes and forms, are an essential part of supply chain due diligence. The number of first-tier suppliers with which companies have a direct sourcing relationship increased by 12%, and a higher percentage of these suppliers was subjected to some level of assessment. Audits are the most widely used method for supplier assessment with 72% of the AIM-PROGRESS membership conducting third party audits in 2018. 66% of companies are using Supplier Self-Assessment Questionnaires (e.g. Sedex SAQ), and 53% report using third-party desk assessment services (e.g. EcoVadis).
- AIM-PROGRESS is particularly pleased to see that 33% of the reported audits conducted in 2018 by our membership are being mutually recognized, thus lessening the cost and resource burden on suppliers.
- 87% of our members engage with suppliers on capability building, with the most common support to first-tier suppliers being the AIM-PROGRESS supplier training events (66%) we organise several times a year across the globe.
Year on year AIM-PROGRESS sees the intensification of members’ responsible sourcing programmes. We hope that the resources and support provided through our initiative are at least partly to thank for this encouraging development. The annual benchmarking report is available to AIM-PROGRESS members only, and can be accessed on the member zone of our website.
BACK TO NEWSLETTER
