Responsible sourcing strategy for EFF

European Flavours and Fragrances (EFF Group) is an international fragrance house & flavour manufacturer, headquartered in the UK, with several manufacturing sites and offices across the globe.

Rawstone Consulting were engaged to help EFF Group establish an approach to responsible sourcing by understanding sustainability-related risks around ingredients and suppliers and developing an easy-to-implement action plan with supporting processes. 

Key highlights from the project include:

• Country risk assessment. We designed a framework using a range of publicly available indices to assess ingredient harvest countries and supplier locations against key environmental (deforestation, water, pollution, biodiversity, carbon, etc.) and social risks (fair treatment of labour, animal welfare, etc.). This resulted in a set of supply chain risk heatmaps.

• Supplier assessments. We used existing supplier data and questionnaires to understand how EFF’s existing supply chain identify and mitigate key risks.

• Supplier Code of Conduct. Working with EFF, we strengthened their ‘Supplier Guiding Principles’ document into a ‘Supplier Code of Conduct’ which sets out the minimum and preferred standards that all EFF suppliers should work to.

• Development of a Responsible Sourcing Action Plan. This final stage brought all the previous work together in a simple-to-execute action plan for the next 12 months. It allows for flexibility in approach which supports EFF’s initial goals in tracking and improving supplier engagement over time.