What is this charter? It is a French initiative with global and systemic ambitions for a more responsible supply chain!
Created in 2010 by the Médiateur des Entreprises (“Company Mediator”) and the Conseil National des Achats (“National Purchasing Council”), this initiative from the French government aims to encourage private companies and public bodies to adopt responsible practices concerning their suppliers, thereby preventing the need for company mediation.
Through the charter’s 10 below commitments, the Worldline Group commits to developing responsible, balanced customer-supplier relationships. Instead of fostering a culture of power struggles, it promotes a collective vision based on best practices that benefit both Worldline and its ecosystem.
- Ensure responsible financial relations with suppliers;
- Maintain respectful relationships with all suppliers, fostering collaborative growth;
- Identify and manage situations of mutual dependence with suppliers;
- Involve signatory organizations in their supply chain;
- Appreciate all life-cycle costs and impacts;
- Integrate environmental and social responsibility issues;
- Ensure the territorial responsibilitý of its organization;
- Uphold professionalism and ethics of the procurement function;
- A procurement function responsible for overall management of supplier relations;
- Establish a “supplier relations” mediator function, tasked with smoothing internal and external relations within the company.
With this commitment, Worldline demonstrates its willingness to implement a continuous improvement plan to enhance ethical practices and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards within its organization and across its value chain.
How does this commitment reflect Worldline Procurement progress and ethical commitment since 2020?
Worldline has undergone massive transformations in its procurement function since 2020, encompassing organizational management, processes and tools. In order to integrate its ESG stakes into its strategy and monitor them properly, Worldline operates a global and comprehensive sustainable procurement strategy that resolves around 3 main axes:
- Ensuring supplier due diligence through comprehensive risk assessments.
- Promoting responsible purchasing practices within the procurement team.
- Continuously improving Worldline suppliers’ ESG performance.
As the Worldline Procurement Sustainability, Risk & Compliancy officer puts it “The Procurement function is an essential transmission belt for many CSR initiatives”, this is why having a Sustainable Procurement policy describing our strategy and objectives on these ESG topics is so critical.
This Sustainable Procurement strategy aligns with the framework and expectations described in the ISO 20400 standard. Sustainable Procurement governance is overseen by the Worldline CPO and managed by a dedicated team to strengthen this dimension across the procurement department and in coordination with CSR, Compliance and Risks departments.
Concretely, implementing our Sustainable Procurement strategy has resulting in the following actions plan and main achievements over the past few years:
Action#1 – Ensure due diligence through supplier risk assessments to work with suitable partners.The implementation of a unique, global and systematic Vendor Onboarding process fully compliant with applicable regulations (Duty of Care, Anti-bribery & Anti-corruption laws, etc.) means that all vendors created in Worldline systems go through a supplier due diligence process (which embeds vendor questionnaires, country & industry risks mapping, screening on sanction lists, political exposed persons lists, legal proceeding, etc.). This part of the process covers a first investigation on ESG risks (i.e. risks relating to climate change, respect of human rights and the environment, compliance and corruption, etc.).
Another process of engagement due diligence is in place after the supplier entity due diligence to tackle the risks relating to services/products bought from the supplier (data protection, security, business continuity, AML, etc.). This process is managed by the Third Party Risk team and is consistent with the entity due diligence process without redundancy.
Action#2 – Promote responsible practices in the supplier selection to contribute to sustainable sourcing.
The procurement team including buyers is aware of CSR main risks and stakes in their scope thanks to regular training, an annual signature of the Procurement Code of Conduct. This translates notably into the systematic integration of ESG criteria within Requests For Proposals. On top of general CSR criteria, sectorial criteria are used to better source our data centers and electronic equipment and thus participate to Worldline eligibility to the EU Green taxonomy or how Worldline business contributes to the energy transition with low carbon and low energy solutions.
Action#3 – Establish binding CSR contract clause to partner with compliant companies.
An enhanced procurement contracts process with the support of legal team is in place to include as much as possible a CSR clause and potentially a Carbon clause in our most strategic contracts. This complements the inevitable Worldline Business Partner’s Commitment to Integrity charter that the supplier has to agree with during its onboarding and through this clause. This charter encourages our suppliers to follow the principles of the United Nations Global Compact in the areas of Human Rights, labor, environmental preservation and anti-corruption practices.
Action #4 – Engage strategic suppliers to improve their CSR performance.
We create a dedicated platform to monitor the ESG performance of our strategic suppliers with an objective of having a minimum rating of 45/100 at the EcoVadis third-party extra-financial rating. This platform enables a closer and real-time monitoring of supplier ESG performance and support Worldline and suppliers with poor ratings in the elaboration of Corrective Action plans to improve. To be representative, the list of strategic suppliers (selected by buyers at supplier parent company level) must cover at least 60% of the total annual spend of the Worldline Group. If a supplier continuously refuses to participate in an EcoVadis assessment or is unwilling to collaborate with Worldline to improve its CSR performance for two consecutive years, an escalation plan will take effect, which may include organizing an on-site CSR audit as a last resort to assess ESG risks for relevant supplier activities such as hardware manufacturing.
As part of its Trust 2025 CSR programme, Worldline has already exceeded its target of having 90% of the spend with strategic suppliers covered by an EcoVadis rating.
Action#5 – Foster dialogue with suppliers to encourage their CSR engagement.
The implementation of Worldline Sustainable Procurement strategy entails a deepened dialogue with strategic suppliers. Worldline organises an annual ESG training dedicated to strategic small and medium entreprises (SMEs) to support their CSR improvement plans and also encourage them to calculate and reduce their carbon footprint.
In 2024, Worldline launched several initiatives:
- Conducted one-to-one interviews with specific suppliers on CSR topics, particularly with poor EcoVadis performers and with strategic suppliers on the carbon footprint reduction plan,
- Carried out its first on-site CSR audit, as an escalation action, at the premises of one of its terminal manufacturer suppliers. The audit concluded that there were no major non-conformities or human rights violations,
- Launched a new subcontractors’ workers survey initiative, sending a satisfaction survey to all Worldline subcontractors employees having access to Worldline system.
Action#6 – Enhance processes to improve payment practices and vulnerable suppliers management.In 2024, thanks to organizational and process improvements, Worldline reduced its average time to pay a supplier by 22 days. Worldline entities (PAYONE, Prepaid, Axepta, Cardlink, etc.) were integrated into the global SAP and P2P tooling set for an enhanced centralisation and consolidation of vendor management and processes, leading to increased efficiency and better monitoring.
Moreover, Worldline has dedicated monitoring for its strategic vulnerable suppliers (i.e., small, or medium suppliers and/or suppliers financially dependent on Worldline, i.e., those with over 20% of their total revenue linked to Worldline). These suppliers are identified and managed with buyers in the most appropriate manner to reduce dependency risks.
The signing of this charter is a first step toward recognizing our practices, with the ambition to obtain the Supplier Relations and Sustainable Procurement label!
Obtaining the Supplier Relations and Sustainable Procurement Label (RFAR) logically extends the charter signing to recognize French companies and public bodies that demonstrate sustainable relations with their suppliers. This certification must undergo an assessment based on the international ISO 20 400 standard by one of the independent third-party organizations (OTI) accredited by the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry. It is the first and only recognized label based on the ISO 20 400 standard in the field of responsible purchasing, awarded for a three-year period with an annual check on major criteria as well as on the continuous improvement plan and its progress.
With the signature of this charter, Worldline unveils its ambition to be labeled in the years to come. Through this certification process, we want to:
- Measure up to the best practices in the field of responsible procurement,
- Secure processes through better control of responsible purchasing risks,
- Make continuous progress thanks to the community of label holders,
- Recognize the level of professionalism of our buyers,
- Provide a certified response to public RFPs, which acts as a differentiating lever, aligning with the objectives of the National Action Plan for Sustainable and Responsible Public Purchasing (PNAD).
Our decision to pursue this voluntary certification process aims to gain recognition for our commitment and actions towards responsible procurement, and our desire to drive continuous improvement in our practices, while levelling up CSR standards within our ecosystem!