Sustainable Supplier Management : How can Telia Company develop the Sustainability Performance in their Supply Chain with a Supplier Code of Conduct?

Abstract: Sustainability has become a strategic and high priority focus area in today’s society. Responsible Business is an important part of the work towards a sustainable society, and Telia Company is one of the companies that actively works to take that responsibility. What is important when it comes to sustainability work in organizations is to look at a longer perspective than just the internal organization. Telia Company has a complex network of suppliers that extend around the world and influencing their sustainabilitywork is therefore critical in order to be able to take that responsibility.This qualitative study was carried out in collaboration with Telia Company with theaim of investigating how the company’s sustainability work in the supply chain can be developed with a code of conduct for suppliers. Today, Telia Company has a process for responsible sourcing where one of the cornerstones is their Supplier Code of Conduct document with requirements agreed and signed by suppliers and followed up by Telia Company continuously. The study’s questions were answered by performing mainly two analyzes. The first analysis is an Industry Peer Benchmarking. Based on the analysis of their sustainability processes within the supply chain, the results show that Telia Company in comparison has good and responsible sustainability work in place in its operations to manage risks in the supply chain. In the second part, an analysis is performed on a selection of Telia Company’s customers to examine how the company meets their set sustainability requirements. The results show that the company meets customers’ requirements in an overall way and that requirements are also in place to pass on these expectations to subcontractors. Previous research and studies also show a paradigm shift where digitalization and new trends are growing in society and affecting customers’ awareness. Accordingly, the measures that is proposed to Telia Company for further development of its supplier requirements are to perform trend analysis and market analysis continuously to meet the stakeholders’ requirements both today and inthe future.