How to Leverage Sustainable Initiatives Implemented in the Procurement Department of an Aluminium Processing Company into Competitive Advantages

Abstract

The commitment to sustainability, as well as the implementation of sustainable initiatives to comply with new regulations, legislation and the expectations of internal and external stakeholders is crucial for a company to be successful in the industry and in business. Superficial commitment to sustainability and to only do the minium of what is expected is not enough and to comply with stakeholder expectations companies have to implement sustainable initiatives, establish a strong commitment to ESG measures and to be verified and certified by third-parties. Furtheremore, a suitable communication strategy has to be created. The aluminium processing company considered in the context of this thesis, is a leading player in the industry concerning sustainability, but nonetheless there is room for improvement, and this paper focusses on the purchasing department. The introduction is followed by the literature research which includes an overview of sustainable initiatives and their relevance for the procurement department, an overview of competitive advantage, their communication and correlation with sustainable initiatives and at last a description of the selected aluminium processing company. Subsequently, is the empirical research with an in depht exlpanation of the choosen methodology. In this respect, the insights and results of the eight interviews and PIE-Evaluations are gathered. To collect insights of different perspectives the interviews are split into four internal and four external ones. The last chapter is a composition of the relevant findings, incorporating the answers of the three research questions. In order to answer the research questions, set out in this bachelor’s thesis, a literature review is conducted, followed by the realization of the empirical research in form of eight expert interviews with additional PIE-Evaluations and the gained knowledge is then appraised and compared to generate a throughout analysis. The evaluation of the empirical research has concluded that in general the most promising sustainable initiatives to be implemented in the procurement department are Responsible Sourcing, Data Maintenance as well as Sustainability Standards with a focus on the ISO 20400 standard. For the selected aluminium processing company of the thesis, it has been displayed that Green Logistics and Data Maintenance score the highest. The repetition of favouring Data Maintenance indicates the high potential and importance of this SI. Possible competitive advantages that can be leveraged by the realization of the above-mentioned SI include the optimization of financing, the mitigation of supply chain risks, new opportunities and the differentiation from the competitors. The key to successfully communicate the mentioned competitive advantages is personalized and direct communication with the customers. The most important part is to understand what the customers expect, want and need from the supplier’s commitment to sustainability.

Date of Award	2025
Original language	English
Supervisor	Peter Hutterer (Supervisor)