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Supplier Selection Process for ESG Due Diligence

For supplier selection, we outline the process for identifying and prioritising suppliers from client purchase data to be included in Responsibly’s ESG due diligence process. The approach ensures that supplier assessments are focused, risk-based, and aligned with internationally recognised ESG risk considerations.

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Master Data Cleaning & Enrichment

Input:
  • Client purchase data (latest available; e.g., full-year 2025 purchase data)
Steps done by Responsibly:
  • Data consolidation: Combine all purchase lines by supplier to remove duplicates. Generate two lists (material suppliers and service suppliers). Calculate total spend per supplier
  • Supplier duplicates: Are identified in collaboration with the client and removed by Responsibly from the system
  • Data filtering: Remove suppliers with zero or negative purchase amounts. Ensure supplier records are unique
  • Data enrichment: Add supplier industry classification and websites where available
  • Suppliers without websites are pointed out by Responsibly to the client
  • Outcome: A cleaned and enriched supplier master list, split into material and service suppliers, with purchase amounts and metadata

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Prioritization

Risk Topic Framework
Risk AreaRelevant for MaterialRelevant for Service
Energy consumption✓
GHG emissions✓
Pollution✓
Resource use & depletion✓
Labor conditions✓✓
Child & forced labor✓
Community impact✓✓
Regulatory compliance✓✓
Data security✓
Transparency & traceability✓
Ethical conduct✓✓
Strength of approach: Focused and prioritized risk management Limitation: Client service supplier data may include categories like machinery, spare parts, and office supplies that could also be considered material suppliers, but the categorisation does not allow precise filtering. Material Suppliers No spend threshold was applied. All material suppliers are included in due diligence. Service suppliers For service suppliers, Responsibly’s risk database is applied:
  • Risk basis: Country- and industry-level and ESG-parameter-level risk data, focusing exclusively on human rights risks
CategoryScoreCriteria
High2All included (human rights risks usually occur in bundles).
Medium1Included if more than 2 medium-level risks present.
Low0Excluded; no relevant risks.
Outcome (last cycle): Service suppliers were included from the following countries: Hungary, Romania, Thailand, Algeria, Serbia, India, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China.

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Final Supplier List

Data used for upload (depending on availability, accuracy and client preference):
  • Supplier name
  • Country
  • Purchase amount (CHF, latest full year)
  • Purchase volume
  • Purchase category (high/middle/low spend)
  • Client categorisation (Type, Group, SubGroup)
  • Supplier type (Material / Service)
  • Supplier industry (Responsibly adds in collaboration with the client an industry categorization based on the industry classification framework GICS)
  • Supplier website
Outcome: A prioritised, risk-based supplier list ready for ESG due diligence in Responsibly

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Updating of new/outdated supplier data

There are two separate workstreams to add new suppliers to the system
  • Ongoing/on demand: Whenever new suppliers fall under the scope of assessment, they are being added on demand to the system during the subscription period (e.g. sourcing scenario assessing new suppliers)
  • Outdated supplier data: Once a year (frequency depends on client preference), all suppliers in Responsibly are being updated to serve the following purposes:
    • Client’s suppliers might have changed
    • Client’s purchase amount/volume has changed
    • New suppliers fall under the scope of assessment due to evolving regulation, risk data, or client ESG objectives
For the latter workstream, Step 1-3 from this process are carried out in the same manner.