Taylor Held
Covidien – Sustainability Initiatives
Covidien is a medical device company that has grown to become one of the world’s largest
global souring companies in the world. The company’s mission is to “create and deliver
innovative healthcare solutions, developed in ethical collaboration with medical professionals,
which enhance the quality of life for patients and improve outcomes for our customers and our
shareholders.” Covidien has undertaken a number of initiatives to deliver a sustainability
program that closely follows their mission. Within the company, Covidien is committed to
programs that benefit both the community and its employees. One goal of the company is to
protect the environment. One such project that aligns with this goal is to reduce energy
consumption and waste in local facilities by creating a green initiative and providing employees
with incentives such as department wide rewards based on which department is able to reduce
the most of their carbon footprint each month. Another project Covidien has put in place is their
“days of caring” in which employees volunteer in community service efforts in their
communities. In the past three years, Covidien has sponsored National Health Center Week in
partnership with NACHC. Covidien employees joined their local communities all over the U.S.
and volunteered their time to participate in this partnership. In 2009, a total of 1,100 employees
in Covidien’s headquarters’ office in Massachusetts gave back to local communities by donating
2,700 hours to 23 different service projects such as delivering over one million wound dressings,
bandages, and gauze rolls to local schools, daycares, community care centers, and homeless
shelters in their communities. Covidien is very committed to the cause of sustainability
throughout its daily operations not only within their local communities and with their employees,
but also with their supplier base.
Covidien has a long history of partnering with innovative suppliers from around the world that
provide them with the goods and services that directly or indirectly support their mission. They
expect their suppliers to share in the same commitment by executing business practices that aim
to contribute to the social well being of the communities in which they do business and have
operations, preserve and protect the environment, and demonstrate accountability and
transparency in sustainability performance. The company relies on more than 25,000 suppliers to
provide a wide range of products, materials and services that contribute to the development their
products. They focus on strategically aligning key suppliers with Covidien’s environmental,
social, and economic goals. Covidien focuses on four key areas for supplier sustainability
including: responsible sourcing, supplier performance and risk management, product stewardship
and material compliance, and global supplier sustainability assessment.
Covidien expects its suppliers to practice environmentally preferable business practices and
sourcing policies for the procurement of goods and services that protect environment and human
health. In their code of conduct of their suppliers, Covidien has stated that each supplier must
provide a safe and healthy work environment for their employees. They forbid the use of child
labor and suppliers are required to have policies that prohibit the use of illegal weapons and
harassment in the workplace. Covidien provides collaboration with its suppliers through their
Supplier Performance Management System (SPM) to ensure the performance and transparency
of their supplier’s financial and operational activities. Covidien combines this program with their
Supplier Risk Matrix to monitor key service, quality, financial, and governmental metrics. By
doing this, it provides Covidien with leverage on supplier data across the company’s operations,
proactively institute risk mitigation plans and identify and support supplier development
opportunities.
To ensure sustainability, in 2010 Covidien launched a policy aimed toward cutting waste. The
company sets out to reduce waste generated by its operations by 20% within five years and
increase recycling effectiveness programs by 10% within ten years. In order to meet these goals,
Covidien looks to the support of its suppliers for compliance with their new waste reduction
efforts. Since 2010, Covidien has collaborated with suppliers to discover new ways to reduce
extra waste created throughout the supply chain. Some of these efforts include picking more
sustainable raw materials. Covidien has been working with suppliers in order to identify any
gaps that can be found in the process by implementing a “hands on approach” to their supplier’s
individual policies. Covidien has committed to fully understanding the suppliers polices and
operations when engaging in business with them.
In my opinion, Covidien has provided very successful sustainability programs. Covidien is
known as one of the biggest global sourcing companies in the world and has always prided itself
on staying very sustainable and socially responsible. Their work in the community and with their
employees provides proof of their commitment. In order to continue their social responsibility
efforts, they have programs such as “days of caring” to give back to their communities. Also,
Covidien has developed an air tight Supplier Code of Conduct that holds suppliers to the
expectations that Covidien sees necessary. Within this Code of Conduct, Covidien holds their
suppliers to follow the goals Covidien has set to meet their sustainability standards.
All that being said, I believe there are some changes that Covidien could make to improve their
initiatives with their suppliers. Covidien states that they monitor and provide a hands on
approach with suppliers policies but do not go into detail with what this means and what efforts
they are taking to follow this approach. First it would be helpful for Covidien to map their supply
network. It was very difficult to find specific supplier of the company and once this network is
mapped, encouraging communication and collaboration between suppliers will help the company
to develop a more functional supply chain and eliminate extra waste. It would be very beneficial
if Covidien, after receiving information from their SPM, to develop a training program to better
help their suppliers become more sustainable in a way that benefits both partners. Finally, I could
not find any information that Covidien labels its first tier, second tier, and third tier suppliers;
identifying and labeling these suppliers would help the company to better manage their
suppliers’ individual functions, making it easier and more possible for them to monitor their
suppliers.
Works Cited:
"Covidien Global Sourcing." Covidien. Covidien, 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2014.
"Social Responsibility." Covidien. Covidien, 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2014.
"Suppliers." Covidien. Covidien, 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2014.
"The Covidien Supplier Code of Conduct." Covidien. Covidien, 2014. Web. 07 Dec. 2014.