Applying a Gender Lens to Sustainable Procurement

Key Learnings

To advance gender equality through your procurement practices, it is important to:

Communicate the business case and rationale for gender-responsive procurement within your company to secure buy-in for investing the time and resources required to create a more diverse supplier network.
Understand the barriers and obstacles facing women-owned businesses and the role companies can play in helping to overcome them and the status of your supplier network.
Make necessary changes to your procurement strategy and practices to ensure clear accountability internally and externally through communication and training for colleagues and suppliers and assessment criteria with KPIs.
Ensure you are able to measure success by setting time-bound commitments and targets and regularly monitor and report on progress against these goals.

Sign onto the Women’s Empowerment Principles and use the Gender Gap Analysis Tool to assess your company’s strengths, gaps, and opportunities to improve performance on gender equality, including in your supply hain.
Review company and supplier codes of conduct and integrate gender-sensitive language and commitments to address any gaps.
Engage with your suppliers and provide training to support them to prioritise gender equality through their business practices.
Explore increasing the number of women-owned businesses and gender-responsive suppliers in your supply chain, for example by connecting with organisations such as WEConnect International.