Our Founder, Alan Wight, talks sourcing ethically with the Good Business Charter
One of the big challenges we face is looking for suppliers that share our own values. Alan talks about how we have worked in the past, what our process has been and what we have been doing over the past few years to change this as we look forward to the future:
"Organising and delivering events means that we are always working in different locations around the UK and overseas. Historically we would favour regular suppliers and have them travel to wherever we were working. That could involve hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles of travel, however our sustainability goals changed that. Over the last 10 years we have built our supplier base to enable us to source most services locally, close to the event. It takes time to build up relationships and trust with new suppliers, because we cannot allow standards to drop.
Sourcing ethically has made a huge difference to our business and as we plan for the next 5 years and beyond, Alan discusses what this means for our future and the industry:
"There is a clear environmental benefit in having local suppliers. Less travel means fewer large trucks and vans on the motorway, even more so if the local suppliers also take the same approach. Local food suppliers provide a real difference, often with unique flavours and options, offering something a little different, which freshens our offer.
There is a clear financial benefit for us too. It takes less time for everything to get to site, which can mean fewer working days, less overnight accommodation and ultimately reduced costs – that is good for us and for our clients. Conversely, we do lose some of the benefits of scale we enjoyed using single suppliers.
The challenge for our team is identifying suitable suppliers, who have sustainability and business practices consistent with our own and who can provide the right offer at the right price. We often don’t have much time to pull everything together, so having a network of pre-approved supplier partners is the most effective solution for us."
As one of the founding members of the Good Business Charter we pride ourselves on committing to sustainable business, looking after our people and the world around us. For more information, see the full article on the GBC site
