Social sustainability crucial for industrial resilience

The research project Sustainable Supply Chains for a Resilient Industry has analyzed how social sustainability is addressed in relationships between customers and suppliers in the mining and minerals industry. The results show that issues such as safety and the work environment are well integrated, while other social sustainability issues still risk being overlooked.

The research project Sustainable Supply Chains for a Resilient Industry has focused on how social sustainability can be ensured in industrial supply chains, with particular emphasis on procurement, requirements and sustainability reporting. An important starting point for the project is that production in the mining and minerals industry has become increasingly complex as a result of outsourcing, while the governance of social sustainability issues has not developed at the same pace. This has created new challenges in the relationships between customers, suppliers and subcontractors.

Addressing these issues is crucial for the industry’s long-term capacity for transformation.

“Social sustainability is seen as a prerequisite for the industry’s transition to be sustainable, attractive and resilient over time. If issues such as the work environment, safety, gender equality and other social risks in supply chains are not handled sufficiently well, this may have consequences for companies and suppliers, as well as for workers and the communities where the industry operates,” says Magnus Nygren, Senior Lecturer at Luleå University of Technology, who has worked on the project.

The main purpose of the project has been to strengthen the industry’s resilience and capacity for transformation by developing knowledge about how social sustainability can be promoted in the relationship between customers and suppliers. The aim has been to produce a knowledge base that can be used to develop procurement, requirements and sustainability reporting, and to create a better mutual understanding between customers and suppliers regarding social sustainability risks and possible ways of working.

One analytical challenge during the project has been that social sustainability is a broad and partly elusive concept. It covers many different issues, including the work environment, safety, gender equality, working conditions, local communities and work-related crime.

“This challenge was partly expected and was addressed by building the project as a joint knowledge process between the participating partners,” says Magnus Nygren.

The project implementation itself, and the collaboration within the consortium consisting of Luleå University of Technology, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, LKAB and Metso, have worked well and proceeded according to plan without any major obstacles.

The project results show how social sustainability is understood and managed in practice within industrial customer–supplier relationships. The analysis shows that social sustainability is mainly represented through established issues such as the work environment, health and safety, human rights and business ethics. Safety stands out as the social issue that is most integrated in both governance and operational practice. The project identifies several governance gaps, including gaps between policy and practice, between strategic and operational levels, between different functions, and between customers, suppliers and subcontractors. SUPPLYCHAIN has also resulted in practical recommendations for how social sustainability can be developed in a more coherent way in relationships between customers and suppliers.

The results help address the identified challenge by making these governance gaps visible and explaining how they arise.

“Instead of describing the problems as purely implementation gaps, the report shows how they emerge in the interaction between how social sustainability is defined, how it is governed and how the work is organised in practice. This gives both customers and suppliers better conditions for developing ways of working that are not only based on more requirements or more follow-up, but also on dialogue, coordination, learning and a clearer translation between policy and daily work,” says Kristina Johansson, Associate Professor at Luleå University of Technology, who also participated in the project.

One partly unexpected result is how rarely the term social sustainability is used explicitly in operational activities, even though several of its subareas are in fact addressed in practice. In particular, issues related to safety and the work environment are strongly integrated, while broader social issues such as inclusion, working conditions further down the supply chain, housing, commuting and impacts on local communities often receive less attention.

Following the conclusion of the project, the final report has been shared within the consortium and has been well received. The project partners have also planned a follow-up to discuss how the results can be implemented in practice and how the work can be taken forward.

Project partners: Luleå University of Technology, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, LKAB and Metso

Photo: LKAB pressbilder, Fredric Alm