UPM joins Together for Sustainability initiative to enhance supply chain sustainability

UPM has joined Together for Sustainability (TfS), a chemical industry initiative that promotes and improves sustainability practices within its supply chains.

By joining the initiative, the member companies share a wide coverage of supplier data, such as audit reports and sustainability assessments performed by independent experts.

“UPM's traditional businesses are having high exposure to chemical industry supply chain, not only on chemical raw materials but also on equipment and services.” says Ilkka Nurmi, Senior Vice President, UPM Sourcing.

“While UPM is not a chemical company, we actively work on portfolio transformation and have a great growth potential in biofuels and biochemicals businesses where we are heavily entering the arena of chemistry.”

TfS has established a standard approach for evaluating and improving the sustainability performance of suppliers. Evaluation covers key areas such as environmental impact, health and safety, labour and human rights as well as management and governance.

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The assessments and audits benefit both members and suppliers, who only go through the process once and avoid multiple assessments by different customers.

"We welcome UPM to the TfS Initiative and look forward to working together on our shared vision of improving supply chain sustainability,” Rüdiger Eberhard, TfS President and Senior Vice President, Head of Procurement (CPO) Evonik Industries.

“UPM brings a strong track record in sustainability to the membership base as well as the ambition to work on sustainability together with the TfS members.”

Nurmi added: “Responsible sourcing has been high on UPM's agenda for years and we have already done a lot of work to ensure the sustainability of our supply chains.

“However, the global supply networks are so complex that it's necessary to pool the resources so that everyone can have access for a wider range of supplier sustainability information. This efficiency will enable focus on sustainability improvements in the supply chains. This is what TfS is all about.”