Top view of a road going through fir trees

Streamlining procurement for TMHE – a sustainability query capture and response process with dedicated consultancy resource support

Objective

TMHE are one of our long-standing clients. Previously, we supported them as they moved from an old EHS system (SOFI) by building a new interim data collection system tailored to their needs and ESRS reporting standards. Over the last few years, they’ve been experiencing a significant increase in the number of sustainability-related customer queries. Most of these go straight to the front-facing staff, who, without the required depth and breadth of knowledge, struggle to keep up with the questions – resulting in procurement bottlenecks.

TMHE needed a way to allow front-facing business functions to answer questionnaires more efficiently and confidently, reducing their reliance on the limited capacity of sustainability teams. With the success of our ongoing relationship in mind, they wanted to tap into our extensive sustainability knowledge to create a process to efficiently answer queries, identify key trends and keep up with growing customer demands.

Client

Toyota Manual Handling Europe

Industry

Manufacturing, material handling

Employees

10,000+

Warehouse shelves staked with boxes and wooden pallets

Action

So how did we help TMHE solve this complex challenge? We created a bespoke solution, building a storage space for over 900 queries, each of which was assigned a tag under broader ESG topics so that they could be mapped easily against ESRS topics. The next phase involved answering the top 100 queries. Our consultants drew from our existing knowledge of the company, as well as TMHE’s internal information such as codes of conduct, historic sustainability reports and internal policies.

Finally, we provided dedicated resource support that would continue to develop the query responses, leading to a total of 250 queries with detailed responses for staff to use internally. Through collaborative workshops with TMHE, our consultant validated the answers ready for an internal launch of the sustainability FAQ document.

Due to the tagging system we created to categorise queries, we could quickly identify key insights and trends. We created visual dashboards so that TMHE could easily see where additional evidence was needed to answer queries. This informed wider changes to their reporting, making sure that required information was publicly accessible and reporting was in line with customer demands. As a result, our analysis provided a useful tool for the ongoing development of TMHE’s sustainability strategy and first CSRD-compliant report.

Impact

Over 200 validated answers to sustainability queries
An easy-to-read sustainability FAQ for internal stakeholders to use when answering customer questionnaires
Empowered, educated workforce able to answer sustainability questions, meaning better customer responses, retention and more efficient procurement overall
Key insights for improvement areas in reporting practises, ESG scorecard submissions and sustainability strategies

“

I am delighted to be working closely with the Sustainit team on the most frequently asked sustainability query capture and response project. The team has been instrumental in setting up a process in place to help us gather, prioritise and respond to the most frequently asked questions. And they are a pleasure to work with.

– Marc Mareaux, Senior Sustainability Manager