Social Traders today released its inaugural Trends and Insights report supported by certified social enterprise IPA Personnel, spotlighting how social procurement targets contribute to the overall motivations and the strategies used to achieve social goals.

The report analyses responses from a survey conducted among 41 Social Traders business and government members, revealing:

• 63% of respondents have either public or internal social procurement targets, with a further 15% currently developing targets.
• Setting targets has yielded success, with 74% of respondents which have social procurement targets meeting or exceeding those targets.
• Customer expectation/reputation is a growing motivation for organisations to set social procurement targets, with 68% of respondents selecting this as a motivation for setting their targets.

At the recent launch event, James Muskett, Head of Sales – IPA Personnel opened the event which saw Katrina Brooks, Social Sustainability Manager – Mirvac, Thomas Poulton, Head of Sustainable Procurement – Macquarie Group Limited and Melissa Raby, Social Procurement & Inclusion Manager – John Holland, part of the panel of procurement experts. They shared their thoughts as to why setting social procurement targets is key to championing the switch to good and its central factor in embedding organisational change.

James Muskett, Head of Sales at IPA Personnel said it’s pleasing to see that the number of organisations with social procurement targets either set or in development is growing and for those that haven’t yet set targets – the fact that the most common barrier is lack of internal knowledge and resources means that with further consultation, collaboration and knowledge-sharing, growth in social procurement is only inevitable.

“As organisations that have shared missions to promote purpose-led businesses, IPA is proud to be involved in the launch of the inaugural Trends and Insights report and we thank Social Traders for sharing the insights and for their ongoing impactful work,” said Mr Muskett.

Commenting on the Trends and Insights report, Tara Anderson, Social Traders CEO, said one of the strategies that’s been key for our leading business and government members is setting targets to drive behavioural change. That’s why our first Trends and Insights report is all about targets and how they’re being used most effectively.

The report also found that 75% of organisations which have an active working group met or exceeded their social procurement targets, compared to just 43% of those which didn’t have a working group.

“At Social Traders, we’re on a mission to make social enterprise procurement the norm. We’re already seeing an increase in interest with our business and government membership experiencing 41% year-on-year growth since 2018, with the major motivation for members being ‘organisational values and sustainability/ESG goals.

“We’re helping organisations deliver on the ‘S’ through sharing best practice and tools, support in establishing frameworks and embedding social enterprises within business and government supply chain with our deep knowledge and expertise.

“In the last five years, Social Traders business and government members have spent $607 million with certified social enterprises including Westpac, Microsoft, SAP, John Holland and the Victorian Government to name a few. We’re also seeing over 70% of business and government members increasing their social procurement spend year-on-year – through innovation, determination and driving internal change.

“It’s an exciting time for us as a sector and we’re looking forward to making social enterprise procurement the norm in Australia. Business for good is certainly catching on.”