CHALLENGES

Overcoming data collection and infrastructure challenges 

Adlibris faced several challenges in ramping up the company’s sustainability efforts. Outdated and inconsistent data from the supply chain made it difficult for Adlibris to meet the objectives that were defined in their renewed sustainability strategy, and suppliers’ different levels of knowledge about ESG topics made it difficult to collect relevant data. Gaining satisfactory answers to the questions that Adlibris asked suppliers had become nearly impossible. 

Additionally, lacking the technical infrastructure to collect and store data would have forced Adlibris to manage data collection manually, using emails, spreadsheets, or internally developed questionnaires.

Some of the main challenges Adlibris was faced with: 

• Unharmonized ESG data collection and a lack of standardized data sets, requiring Adlibris to create their own questions and data sets, which was time-consuming and led to reporting fatigue. 

• Lack of accurate sustainability data from suppliers. 

• Outdated documentation. 

• Difficulty obtaining consistent data from suppliers. 

• Varying levels of sustainability maturity among suppliers, making data access challenging. 

• No technical infrastructure for efficient data management. 

Implementing supplier due diligence in line with OECD guidelines to meet regulatory demands 

Adlibris sought a solution to streamline supplier engagement and gain insights into their global supply chain, aligning with the company’s sustainability strategy and meeting legal requirements, including compliance with Åpenhetsloven, the Norwegian Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, due to their operations in Norway. Adlibris also wanted to manage their supplier code of conduct in an efficient manner. 

It requires them to implement and carry out a due diligence process in line with the OECD guidelines, publish an annual report on due diligence strategies, and be transparent toward consumers about potential and actual adverse impacts in the supply chain. 

Some of the needs Adlibris had identified were: 

• Collecting, tracking, and analyzing ESG data from the supply chain in an efficient and secure manner to enable long-term improvements. 

• Understanding their suppliers’ sustainability baseline and performance.

• Staying on par with legal sustainability requirements, such as Åpenhetsloven, the Norwegian due diligence act. 

• Enabling suppliers with adequate information and tools to share required information in an orderly manner. 

SOLUTION

Supply chain improvement in a user-friendly platform 

Worldfavor was chosen as a vendor thanks to the intuitive platform and transparent and attentive approach of Worldfavor’s experts with good understanding of Adlibris’ challenges. Worldfavor’s Sustainable Sourcing solution helps Adlibris address the challenges the company faced regarding supplier engagement and procurement data needs. The best-practice setup of standardized data questionnaires helps Adlibris streamline data collection, ensuring that they ask for relevant information from the supply chain and receive answers in the right format, ready to be analyzed and exported. 

Worldfavor helps Adlibris to assess suppliers and conduct automated risk analyses, making it easy for the company to pinpoint where action is needed and which suppliers are subject to potential human rights, environmental, or governance risks. 

Worldfavor's standardized questionnaires streamline data collection, ensuring relevant information is shared in the right format for analyzing data. 

Supplier engagement

In addition to providing the technical infrastructure for collecting and analyzing data, Worldfavor recognizes the crucial need to support suppliers who may lack sophisticated tools or knowledge about ESG topics. The platform offers guidance and provides an intuitive environment to share data, enabling suppliers to understand and share the required sustainability data with Adlibris in a consistent format in a platform that’s easy to use and offers them guidance on sustainability topics.