Embedding Sustainability in Lindt & Sprüngli's Procurement
Sustainable procurement is a vital tool for driving innovation and success in business.
In a discussion with EcoVadis' Annette Gevaert, SVP, Alliances & Strategic Initiatives for its EV Talks, Julia Laveissierre, Head of Responsible Sourcing at Lindt & Sprüngli Group, discusses how integrating EcoVadis and Sievo transforms its procurement.
Transforming supply chain management
The renowned Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Sprüngli transforms its approach to sustainable procurement by integrating EcoVadis Ratings directly into its Sievo sourcing platform.
This integration modifies how the company evaluates and manages supplier sustainability across its global supply chain.
The Sievo-EcoVadis connector is fundamental in centralising sourcing decisions and making information readily available as part of the risk validation process.
This simplifies sustainable procurement, achieving 76% supplier coverage and building supply chain resilience.
By connecting EcoVadis sustainability data with Sievo's procurement intelligence, Lindt & Sprüngli centralises sustainability insights within its sourcing workflow.
This eliminates the need to switch between systems.
The company attains 76% supplier coverage with sustainability ratings, offering outstanding visibility into its supply chain.
It further streamlines risk validation processes by making critical sustainability information accessible during sourcing decisions, enhancing supply chain resilience through data-informed sustainability assessments.
The Sievo-EcoVadis connector acts as the core of this change, seamlessly linking supplier spend data with comprehensive sustainability ratings.
This integration enables procurement teams to make informed decisions that balance cost, quality and sustainability performance without disrupting established workflows.
The result is a more resilient, sustainable supply chain aligning with Lindt & Sprüngli's commitment to responsible sourcing while maintaining operational efficiency.
Creating order from chaos
The company selects EcoVadis as a tool for measuring the sustainability maturity of its suppliers.
EcoVadis's capability to integrate into Sievo, the procurement analytic tool it uses, creates one environment housing all data required for sourcing decisions.
EcoVadis and Sievo bring order to unstructured data.
"Sievo is acting like a data lake," Julia says. "Suddenly, in one place, the buyer can manage sustainability as they manage the rest."
Julia highlights an example where, in Sievo, a scorecard can be requested directly from a supplier, providing access to the results.
Instantly, a buyer can see which supplier has not completed its sustainability assessments and what the scores are, allowing them to present it back to the supplier.
The benefit of the integration allows Sievo to serve as a vital, single source of truth for the company, assisting buyers in making decisions while reviewing the platform’s capabilities.
Sievo allows users to easily access the supplier’s performance, spend, and sustainability.
"The beauty of that is, because this tool is highly adopted for a long time, the buyer suddenly also has access to sustainability and it becomes fully integrated into discussion with suppliers, into category reviews, risk management, that was the beauty of that," says Julia.
"One place, they can do everything."
Building resilience through partnership and innovation
Procurement teams are currently under pressure to meet strict regulations and guidelines.
For Lindt & Sprüngli, EcoVadis assists in due diligence by becoming a tool that aids risk validation processes.
Regarding carbon reduction, Lindt, like many companies, seeks contributions from suppliers.
When the company considers a supplier identified as high risk, it uses the EcoVadis score to satisfy due diligence requirements.
Sustainable procurement is crucial for Lindt & Sprüngli, with Julia describing it as key to propelling the business in the long term.
Sustainable procurement aids Lindt & Sprüngli in building resilience through its supply chain, mitigating challenges during supply crises.
Looking ahead, Julia predicts challenges will persist, stressing that a resilient supply chain is crucial to overcoming these challenges.
Partnering with suppliers to ensure proper dialogue is essential.
Alongside supplier partnerships, she also emphasises that innovation is significant.
"To be able to be resilient, you have to do business differently than you do today, and your partners or suppliers can't do it alone.," Julia adds.
"We cannot just ask suppliers to do things. We need to partner with them - it's a virtuous circle where you create innovation, you can invest and help them to change."
