Procurement with Purpose Newsletter No 126, July 23rd, 2025, with my webinar, DEI pushback, sustainability struggles, and UK dirty water

I’m into a fortnightly newsletter cycle through the holiday months, although quite a  lot has been going on in terms of UK sustainability in the last week or so, with a lot of media coverage around the water industry, and a new report looking at the future path towards UK net zero by 2050.

And we finally had some decent rain – just in time for the start of the school holidays, of course. However, that was accompanied by more restrictions on water use in much of the UK, as reservoirs are at low levels.  And the FT reported that ‘From potatoes in Britain to onions in India, weather extremes driven by climate change are pushing short-term food price surges globally, research has found’.  Well my potato crop is again very poor this year, although I think I have had some disease issues, as well as the extremely dry spring and early summer restricting growth. But the beans, broccoli and courgettes are doing OK...

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Webinar - risk and resilience

On August 12th, I’m speaking at a webinar organised by software firm Proactis, along with Ilija Ugrinic, Director of Product Strategy and Innovation from the firm.  The topic is "HIDDEN RISKS, REAL COSTS: Strengthening supply chains" and sustainable procurement issues will form part of that discussion.

So for instance, are your suppliers vulnerable to new climate extremes? Or to human rights issues and infringements?  Of course, there are many other risks, and geo-political issues have certainly come to the fore in recent years. Then we have tariffs – not something many of us have had to worry about in our procurement lives until recently.

We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking risks such as those related to climate and human rights only to direct materials – agricultural products, metal and minerals and so on. But when we look at modern slavery, we have seen examples of bad practice and abuse in the technology supply chain, for instance, so ‘indirect’ procurement needs to be considered too in any risk and sustainability programmes. That will be a major focus of our webinar, and we will make sure we have time for some questions and discussion as well as the presentations.

You can register here, free of charge and hope to see you there.

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DEI pushback from shareholders is failing – but why?

An interesting article in Forbes discusses why shareholder proposals asking companies to water down or cancel DEI activities are failing. We might think it is because firms are holding the line against the Trumpian dislike of such activities, or simply that DEI programmes are a Good Thing. But Forbes argues it is more that the large company shareholders – investment firms, insurance and pension companies and so on – just don’t like shareholder proposals of any sort. They much prefer proposals coming to the AGM from the company management itself.

In a report from investment giant Blackrock last year, the firm pointed out that many shareholder proposals coming to annual meetings were of poor quality, particularly on those attempting to address climate and natural capital or company impacts on people-related issues. (Of course that includes proposals for firms to take MORE action on climate, for instance). “Consistent with last year, we found the majority of proposals addressing these topics were overreaching, lacked economic merit, or sought outcomes that were unlikely to promote long-term shareholder value. A significant percentage were focused on business risks that companies already had processes in place to address, making them redundant”.

Firms are well aware now that DEI proposals must not go too far and infringe laws on equal treatment for staff or indeed suppliers, and must avoid ‘positive discrimination’ based on race, sex or whatever.  Policies now are more carefully thought-out, I suspect, with proper risk analysis undertaken. So it looks like activists such as Robby Starbuck may be less prominent in future, although he does deserve some praise for pointing out that DEI had gone too far in some firms.

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However… it is not all good news for sustainability

However, there is bad news from the Trellis Group (industry-leading events, peer networks and digital media).  You may not be surprised to learn that 70 percent of experts say there is significant pushback against the sustainability agenda in their country, up 13 percentage points from 2024. And it is even less surprise that in North America, 90% report a significant backlash.  That figure is 70% in Europe, but much lower figures are reported from Asia Pacific, where two thirds say there is no negativity. Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Middle East sit in between with around 60% reporting issues.

This data comes from a survey of 844 sustainability practitioners in 72 countries, carried out by Trellis data partner GlobeScan, in conjunction with the ERM Sustainability Institute and Volans. Ninety-three percent of experts say the sustainability agenda needs revision, while more than half of those surveyed (56 percent) call for a radical overhaul, often suggesting quite dramatic actions. It is not just the political pushback having an influence on private and public sector organisations that is an issue – experts are frustrated by the slow pace of progress.

I suspect there is a vicious circle here. Lack of progress leads to cynicism, which leads to less progress… and so on.  For instance, the big tech firms which took leadership positions on net zero targets are now seeing emissions rising because of the growth in energy-hungry AI and more data centres to support the new technology. None of those firms has said ‘oh forget AI, achieving net zero is more important’.  So then a smaller firm which sees its Scope 3 emissions going up because of its big suppliers, over whom they have no real influence, thinks ‘ well, what’s the point of us doing anything?’

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UK water industry – a cash cow (with added crap)

George Monbiot held forth with a powerful diatribe about the UK water sector last week in the Guardian. “High water bills, filthy rivers – and now drought. This is England’s great artificial water crisis of 2025” was the headline.

Perhaps the most shocking fact in Monbiot’s article is that up to 2023, the private water companies have extracted £77.6 billion in dividends since privatisation in the 1990 (at 2023 prices).  ‘Instead of borrowing to pay for infrastructure improvement, water companies borrowed to pay for dividends. They knew that if the enterprise one day became insolvent as a result, it would be someone else’s problem’.

Privatisation was supposed to bring investment into the sector and whilst obviously there has been some, funded largely via bills to users, you can’t get away from the fact that the industry has proved a cash cow for private equity firms and other investment vehicles. Most of those are not UK owned either, so the vast majority of that money has left the country – it is not as if it has made UK small shareholders rich.

I’ve also just seen a brilliant interview on Sky News with Feargal Sharkey, main man in the brilliant pop punk band the Undertones and now an amazing campaigner in the water industry. He tore into the industry and the failure of governments and regulators to hold the water firms to account. As I write this (July 21st), the report from Sir Jon Cunliffe on the industry has just been published, calling for the abolition of Ofwat and formation of a new watchdog body. I’ll take a look at that for the next newsletter.

What can we do personally about the issue though? Well, make sure you and your organisation don’t waste water, for a start. Have you been watering the lawn outside your office recently? Stop it now. At a personal level, don’t flush the loo after every pee, don’t have the water running full blast while you clean your teeth. Save washing up water for the garden.  At a corporate level, obviously, avoid pollution that might enter the water system.  Where you buy goods or services that require a lot of water within the ‘production’ process, ask your suppliers what they are doing in terms of better water management. We can all do something, even if it isn't that much.

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Alex G – who is he?

The world of popular music is so vast now, no-one can keep up with everything and everybody. That’s my excuse for never listening to Alex G (Alex Giannascoli), until today (thanks to Pitchfork), despite his 9 million Spotify listens and supporting Foo Fighters on tour.  His new album, Headlights, is just out and is his tenth, but his first for a major label.

He started out very much as a teenage bedroom artist but this album is pretty sophisticated with great production and varied instrumentation. He sits in the ‘quirky adult rock’ bucket – at first listening, it sounds tuneful and enjoyable, but a little MOR. Listen again and there are strange musical touches and somewhat odd lyrics to get your teeth into, hence the glowing reviews in the Guardian and on Pitchfork. Definitely worth a listen – this is the title track.  Actually, I think this is my favourite track from the album. I’m a sucker for a nice bit of mandolin.