Working with suppliers
To be a safe and secure bank for our customers and society, we take care to know our suppliers and ensure they share our commitment to fighting climate change and protecting human rights. We have a process in place that encourages our suppliers worldwide to act responsibly. We believe this is a real opportunity to have an impact and drive our sustainability ambitions through our supply chain.
We’ve included social and environmental responsibility requirements in our procurement process since 2012. ING’s Procurement Sustainability Standards was based on the UN Global Compact Principles and is now incorporated into our global Know Your Supplier (KYS) process. The sustainability part of the KYS process today is evolved and expanded beyond UN Global Compact Principles and also holds other social and environmental aspects e.g. compliancy to Modern Slavery acts. This ensures we only do business with companies that agree to meet our sustainability requirements.
More specifically, the KYS process helps us determine the levels of social, environmental and financial risks associated with a supplier. As a first step, we screen (potential) suppliers for social and environmental risks and performance. There are different levels of due diligence with various dependencies based on a yearly spend threshold. Suppliers that require further due diligence must agree to comply with ING’s environmental and social policy on restricted activities and the principles on human rights, forced labour, child labour, fair labour standards, environmental protection, anti-corruption as well as modern slavery acts. Suppliers that successfully complete the full KYS process, attain ‘qualified’ ING supplier status and are ready to become potential ING suppliers.
While we are proud of the sustainability criteria already in place in our KYS process, this is an ongoing process that requires constant attention to ensure we continue to comply with developments.
Sustainable procurement in the Netherlands
ING in the Netherlands takes a global approach to sustainable procurement. Its approach includes:
- Inclusion of environmental and social criteria in requests for proposals (RFPs).
In addition to criteria in our global know your supplier(KYS) process, we ask suppliers in potential high-risk categories (e.g., facility services, IT and professional services) for additional information about the sustainability of their products or services. This helps ING to make better, more sustainable purchasing decisions. Bespoke questions covering environmental and social issues, as well as circular economy concepts, are embedded in these RFPs.
- Contractual obligations for suppliers.
The ING Supplier Sustainability Code of Conduct sets out standards for suppliers and provides recommendations on topics like: environmental, human rights, labour and ethical business practices.
- In-depth sustainability screening and monitoring of major suppliers.
We partner with EcoVadis, a provider of sustainability ratings for supply chains, that monitors the social and environmental performance of our major suppliers. We undergo a continuous dialogue with suppliers, assigning corrective action plans, where necessary, to help them to improve their sustainability performance.
Environmental and social risk management
Find out more about how our environmental and social risk (ESR) policy framework guides us in making transparent choices about how, where and with whom we do business.