Our dialogue with stakeholders showed clearly the importance of managing EHS risks and opportunities in the supply chain. But it is also the case that all companies, including our largest multi-national customers, find supply chain management challenging.

We encourage our manufacturing sites to introduce some form of supplier assessment programme. This is generally undertaken as part of an ISO 14001 programme, with supplier risk assessments and improvement initiatives developed at a local level.

Guidance on supplier Health and Safety questionnaires is provided in our global best practice safety manual. We are at the early stages of gathering information - through questionnaires and visits - to help us identify and understand the environmental risks and opportunities in the supply chain.
The introduction of returnable packaging systems has been a common area of improvement to date:

• Collapsible packaging for polymer raw material supplied to Flexible Ducting (Specialty Engineering) in Scotland for the manufacture of flexible hoses, saving 16 tonnes of cardboard each year.
• Re-usable plywood packaging which avoids need for filling material and cardboard at JC Safematic in Finland (Specialty Engineering).
• Wire baskets for castings supplied to Smiths Aerospace Actuation Systems - TDI, significantly reducing cardboard.

We recognise that further work is needed to determine the best approach to the management of supplier risks, as purchasing policy is generally devolved to business units.

Supplier Environmental Programme at John Crane Safematic

John Crane Safematic in Finland has spent many years developing a comprehensive environmental management system that includes its suppliers. Contracts specify that recycled packaging must be used and environmental audits undertaken to check that effective arrangements are in place to manage antimonium carbide’s significant environmental impacts.