Reshape Recap: Purchasing, but with a Conscience

At the first in-persom Amazon Business Reshape event in September 2022, Antwaun Griffin, Head of Amazon Business Socially Responsible Purchasing, along with Lois Rouder, Amazon Senior Business Development Manager, and Anthony Jenkins, Amazon Senior Product Manager, took the stage to discuss Amazon Business’s Socially Responsible Purchasing tools and share resources available to customers to help them make progress towards their social responsibility goals.


During Purchasing, but with a Conscience, Antwaun started by discussing the important role that third party sellers play in providing products. Citing the 2021 Amazon Small Business Empowerment Report, Antwaun shared that third-party seller products account for more than half of all units sold the Amazon store and went on to share that United States (US) based small and medium businesses:

• average $200,000 in annual sales
• sold more than 3.8 billion products on Amazon
• created ~1.8 million US based jobs

“Responsible sourcing is a growing priority based on several recent studies,” stated Antwan, who cited key statistics:

• 88% of organizations consider supporting diversity and social responsibility corporate culture an important objective
• 72% of global corporations highlight sustainability goals in their annual reports
• 46% of commercial organizations plan on supporting local businesses within their communities

After reviewing the importance businesses are placing on responsible sourcing, Antwaun and Lois discussed how Amazon Business is helping organizations make progress towards meeting socially responsible purchasing goals. “Many customers find it difficult to find a single source to purchase their more-sustainable products as well as find suppliers that are local or diverse,” explained Lois, underscoring the need for tools that enable purchasing teams to quickly identify sellers and products with the criteria they are looking for. Lois highlighted specific Amazon Business tools and reports that can help purchasing teams overcome these barriers:

• Guided Buying, a Business Prime feature, allows purchasing teams to customize policies to prefer small, diverse, and local sellers in addition to preferring sustainable products.
• Amazon Business Analytics and Spend Visibility, another Business Prime feature, allow organizations to track and report on spend directed towards more sustainable products and small, diverse, and local sellers with reports such as Spend by Location, Total Diversity Spend, and others.
• Amazon also recognizes certifications from national certification bodies including the Small Business Administration, Department of Veteran Affairs, Supplier GATEWAY and others that make it easier for purchasers to identify diversity spend. 

To drive home the impact of these tools and reports, Lois shared the following quote from Denise Lombard, Director of Responsible Procurement at Cisco: “Cisco’s purpose is to power an inclusive future for all. That means everyone. Partnering with Amazon Business, we are able to easily discover diverse-owned businesses, increasing their visibility, and ultimately spend, across our company.”

Lois also shared that the City of Miami was one of the first customers to implement Buy Local with Mayor Suarez, saying, “We’re thrilled to collaborate with Amazon Business to create a solution that will help our local and small business community find work opportunities with our city government. Now, more than ever, we need to be engaging and supporting our independent vendors and mom-and-pop businesses.”

The final portion of the discussion focused on Anthony reviewing the Climate Pledge Friendly (CPF) program and associated certifications. Anthony explains that the CPF program revolves around the storefront and activating the Sustainability Preferred policy to help purchasers discover and shop for more-sustainable products. Anthony went on to discuss how Amazon has partnered trusted third-party certifications and to highlight products that meet sustainability standards and help preserve the natural world.

“We are committed to building a sustainable business for our customers and the planet,” said Anthony. In addition to partnering with third-party certifications, Anthony discussed two certifications created by Amazon:

• Compact by Design: While products might not always look very different, some are more efficiently packaged or designed. These products and designs contribute to sustainable efforts by using less packaging, less air, and less cubic inches reducing waste.
• Pre-owned Certified: Pre-owned Certified products are inspected, cleaned and (if applicable) repaired to excellent functional standards. Buying Pre-Owned extends a product's life, reducing e-waste and raw material extraction.

As of May 2022, there are over 300,000 CPF products available on Amazon Business – 26% are Compact by Design. Anthonynoted that with the Sustainability Preferred policies enabled, these products will become more discoverable to users and appear above the search results.

Anthony explained that even without the buying policies enabled, customers can use the Climate Pledge Friendly storefront that is customized with B2B relevant products. Customers can also perform a regular search and then use a filter to show only CPF products.

Anthony closed the presentation by sharing a quote from Justin Burnett, VP of Materials Mgmt. and Warehousing at BP: “We are consolidating orders and shipments with Amazon Business to one day per week timed with our vessel schedules. This add reliability to our supply chain and will have a positive impact on our ambition and commitment to be net zero by 2050.”