How is TotalEnergies Prioritising Sustainable Procurement?
TotalEnergies, a leader in the global energy market, engages in the production and sale of various energy forms: from oil and biofuels to natural gas, and from renewables to electricity.
Collaborating with over 100,000 suppliers globally, the company has a significant impact across the energy sector. TotalEnergies’ procurement expenditure reached approximately US$30bn in 2023.
The company is at the forefront of promoting sustainable practices, encouraging its vast array of suppliers to pioneer sustainability.
TotalEnergies has conducted 740 supplier audits since 2016 to scrutinize their sustainability efforts.
Boosting supplier sustainability
TotalEnergies has laid out several strategic priorities aimed at enhancing the sustainability of its suppliers. This includes comprehensive training for its buyers, mobilising and raising awareness among suppliers about sustainable development, integrating sustainability into procurement processes, evaluating supplier performance in sustainability and supporting suppliers in continuous improvement.
Buyer training and supplier engagement
As of the end of 2023, 61% of TotalEnergies’ buyers have been trained in sustainable purchasing, accompanied by ongoing awareness initiatives through thematic webinars. The company also organises supplier days and training sessions in various global locations to foster supplier engagement in sustainable practices.
Embedding sustainability in procurement
With updated principles that emphasize climate and sustainability, TotalEnergies ensures that environmental, social, and climate-related criteria are integral to the tender assessment process. Moreover, it aims to assess its 1,300 key suppliers on sustainable development metrics by 2025, with 37% already evaluated in 2023.
Continuous improvement and rights protection
Action plans following audits have significantly improved labour conditions for over 60,000 workers, ensuring rights to rest, fair compensation, and basic amenities like drinking water. Noteworthy improvements include enforcing weekly rest days for construction workers, with verification audits in 2023 confirming the adherence to rest period regulations by the audited suppliers.
Innovation for sustainability
In its quest for sustainability, TotalEnergies has partnered with SLB to advance in the development of digital solutions aimed at enhancing sustainable hydrocarbon production. This collaboration focuses on cloud-based next-generation software to refine subsurface modelling, which helps to optimise and make production processes more sustainable.
The initiative also explores leveraging AI for reducing carbon intensity in existing fields and progressing in geological carbon storage. These technological advancements are built upon previous collaborative efforts and are supported by TotalEnergies’ initiative to solarise SLB’s industrial sites globally, assisting in SLB’s energy transition.
Namita Shah, President of OneTech at TotalEnergies, says: “We are delighted to develop our multi-energy partnerships with SLB through solarisation of SLB’s industrial sites and digital innovation that will allow us to develop cutting-edge next-generation software, digital applications and new algorithms applied to geoscience.
“Thanks to these innovative modelling technologies, we will better utilise the analyses of geological reservoirs and basins in the Oil & Gas sector to reduce emissions and we will progress in geological carbon storage.”
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