Publications & Thought Leadership

Social Sourcing: Creating Social and Business Value Through Procurement is a presentation Coro gave to the Supply Chain Management Association BC Chapter on social sourcing and how buyers can create both social and business value through procurement. She provides a general definition of social sourcing, including social ownership, social practices and products, and capacity building. Then she summarizes the business benefits of social procurement and profiles a dozen social sourcing and procurement case study examples. The slides include a how-to list of steps to build social objectives into the procurement process and a model of transformational social sourcing in which buyers repurpose their role to include buying for the purpose of transforming lives.

Coro defines Social Sourcing as the use of purchasing power to create social value. She includes the following in her definition of Social Sourcing:

Social Ownership

• Local
• Inner City
• Social Enterprise
• Diversity

Social Practices and Products

• Living Wage
• Fair Trade
• Health and Safety
• Social/Community Benefit
• Socially Beneficial Products

Social Capacity Building

• Sustainable Livelihoods
• Supplier Social Engagement

Social Sourcing drivers include:

• Expectations for business role in society
• Corporate social responsibility
• Green procurement
• Shift in how value for money is defined
• More strategic role of procurement department

Coro’s checklist to guide buyers in implementing Social Sourcing include:

• Developing a management framework
• Including Social Sourcing in a procurement toolkit
• Developing a Social Sourcing database
• Contract management