HP
Focus on a Member - March 2008
Every month, CSR Europe introduces one of its members' key CSR focus areas and activities through a brief interview. This month, Karl Daumüller, Program Manager, HP Global Procurement Services shares some of his company's policies and initiatives in the area of supply chain management.
As a multinational company, what is HP's approach to responsible supply chain management?
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| Karl Daumüller, HP |
With over 400 contracted manufacturers worldwide, who employ more than 400,000 workers at over 1,000 manufacturing locations around the world, HP has one of the largest supply chains in the industry. We are aware of the challenges but also of the opportunities managing a responsible supply chain.
Our goal is to establish long term relationships with our suppliers. Our experience is that communication and collaboration often lead to innovation and rapid improvement and constitute a far more effective approach than policing and enforcing.
We also know that often our suppliers are unfortunately partly not in a position to develop social and environmental practices themselves as they lack needed resources and skills. This is why we follow a capability building, education and cooperation approach in our supply chain management.
In China for example, we launched the 'Focused Improvement Suppliers Initiative' together with the Business for Social Responsibility's China Training Institute to help suppliers build management skills and share best practices. Training sessions cover for example productivity & working hours or health & safety.
How does HP engage in industry initiatives on supply chain management?
We support industry wide initiatives since we know that we need to leverage from each other to achieve sustainable solutions. That is why we took a leading role in creating the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC) recognising the advantages of consistently addressing supply chain social and environmental responsibility issues industry-wide. Another collaboration is with the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI).
Both the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition and GeSI are collaborating to develop and deploy tools and processes to monitor supply chain social and environmental responsibility performance across the information and communications technology sector. HP has contributed significant resources and leadership to both efforts over the last three years. HP is also active in BLIHR: Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights and Business for Social Responsibility Beyond Monitoring Initiative.
SMEs make up a large part of the business community in Europe. How does HP work with its SME suppliers?
We know that many of our suppliers are small and medium enterprises. Especially those suppliers lack capability and resources to establish responsible supply chain business practices.
Together with the Danish Commerce and Companies Agency, we worked on a project which addresses exactly this issue. We worked with 5 direct suppliers and 16 of their SME suppliers in Eastern Europe to develop efficient and responsible business practices. We provided our suppliers with training and showed them how they can audit their own suppliers. We tailored the training according to the needs of our suppliers and their SME suppliers and summarised our learning from this project in a report entitled 'Small Suppliers in Global Supply Chains' (view report PDF).
I see the need for such projects and I enjoyed observing considerable improvements in the course of the project. I am looking forward to similar projects and hope to get a follow up project with the European Commission.
HP is one of the companies leading the Laboratory on Responsible Supply Chain Management. Could you tell us a bit more about this Laboratory and HP's interest in it?
Since March 2006 HP leads together with Titan and Volkswagen the CSR Laboratory on Responsible Supply Chain Management. The aim of the laboratory is identify relevant regulations and international standards and to share best practices and experiences. During the 2007 CSR Europe MarketPlace, our laboratory was even awarded for its work on sustainable supply chain management.
We are currently working on the creation of a European online portal which will provide a map of key standards and principles and training material to a wider audience. The platform will also enable fruitful discussions and information sharing across industries and countries. We are quite on schedule regarding the development of the platform and hope to be ready by the end of this year.
I enjoy the work in the laboratory and consider it as a successful and productive way to collaborate with experts from various industries and to leverage from each other's experiences.
About HP
HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging & printing. HP operates in more than 170 countries around the world. For more information, please visit www.hp.com.
More information
For more information about CSR Europe activities in which HP engages, please contact Carien Duisterwinkel on cd@csreurope.org.
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