According to a study by Amazon Business
Sustainability awareness is widespread among those responsible for purchasing in companies, according to an Amazon Business study in which 1,000 employees of Spanish companies have participated in 2022. Four in five (80%) say they take into account whether the products and supplies they buy for their business are sustainable, but only a third (35%) always have sustainability in mind when making purchases.
Despite the fact that four out of five (81%) Spanish employees of large companies (more than 1,000 employees) state that their organization has set goals to ensure that supplies and products in the workplace are sustainable, only 17% acknowledge knowing Well what do they imply? In addition, 66% of those surveyed in Spain state that their company offers guidelines on how to make more sustainable purchases in the workplace, but only 33% acknowledge knowing them.
The same study indicates that the company’s commitment to sustainability is the main motivation for these people to take it into account when making their purchases (57%). However, personal awareness is also an influential factor, with 52% saying it is the reason they consider sustainability. In addition, 55% of purchasing managers in companies say they pay the same attention to sustainability in their personal and work lives.
Among those who say they don’t take sustainability into account, only 7% said it’s because they don’t think it will make a difference to their impact on the environment and only 8% said it’s because they don’t care about sustainability.
Reasons for not considering sustainability were more focused on a lack of encouragement from their organization (29%) and not enough suppliers offering sustainable products (27%).
To help address this issue, employees in the study believe that better technology to support sustainable purchasing practices (23%) and strong corporate guidelines around socially responsible purchasing (26%) would make them feel better prepared to make sustainable purchasing decisions in your company.
“It’s clear that purchasing is a crucial part of many organizations’ journey towards greater social responsibility, so it’s encouraging to see a real desire from workers, of all ages and levels of the organization, to buy more sustainably.” . However, management teams need to take a hard look at how they can best empower their workers to translate intention into action. From digitizing processes and tools, to improving communication and training on goals and policies, socially responsible purchasing can be improved quickly and easily. Just a few small steps will transform the efforts of the organization, empowering everyone to make a difference across the company in terms of sustainability,” says Christopher Kallscheid, CEO of Amazon Business Spain.
In the market study, carried out in collaboration with the company Opinium, Amazon Business has surveyed 5,000 employees of Spanish, British, French, German and Italian companies, from various industries such as the public sector, education, automotive, commerce retail and financial services, on whether they are able to make sustainable purchasing decisions in their workplace.