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Guide · For procurement teams

How to implement the UN Global Compact Sustainable Procurement Framework

The UN Global Compact's new framework tells procurement teams what to do at each stage of the buying cycle, at three levels of maturity. This guide explains how it is built, where to start, and how to deal with the part that stalls most teams first: getting consistent data out of suppliers, especially small ones.

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An independent guide. EcoDiligence is not affiliated with or endorsed by the UN Global Compact, and using EcoDiligence does not mean you have implemented the framework. The framework itself is at procurementframework.unglobalcompact.org.

The short version
  • It is voluntary guidance for buyers, not a regulation and not a reporting standard for suppliers.
  • 9 topics, 29 subtopics, four procurement stages, three maturity levels. You pick the subtopics that are material to you and the level you are at.
  • Across subtopics, many Initial actions are requests to suppliers: screening questions, self-assessments, baseline data.
  • Sending a new form per subtopic is how supplier fatigue starts. One consolidated request in one standard format is the practical fix, and the framework's own SME Enablement subtopic points the same way.

What the framework is

The Sustainable Procurement Implementation Framework was launched on 21 September 2026 by the UN Global Compact Coalition for Sustainable Procurement, a group of companies formed in 2025. Its stated ambition is to help 100,000 companies integrate sustainability into procurement by 2030.

It deliberately does not tell you what to achieve; regulation and your own commitments do that. It covers how: which concrete actions a procurement function can take, in what order, with what resources. It is written for procurement teams that already know which sustainability topics are material to their spend.

How it is structured

Three pillars, 9 topics and 29 subtopics. Each subtopic, such as GHG Emissions Data Management under Climate, has its own page of actions.

Environment

  • Circularity (3 subtopics)
  • Nature (5 subtopics)
  • Climate (4 subtopics)

Social

  • Labour Rights (3 subtopics)
  • Decent Work (3 subtopics)
  • Fair Treatment (3 subtopics)

Governance

  • Ethics & Anti-Corruption (3 subtopics)
  • Digital Responsibility (2 subtopics)
  • Inclusive Sourcing (3 subtopics)

Within every subtopic, actions are arranged along the same two axes.

Four procurement stages

  • Strategy & Planning: Assess where you are, set policy, set targets.
  • Supplier Selection: Screening questions, selection criteria, contract clauses.
  • Supplier Engagement: Goal setting, capacity building, data collection, advisory, financial support, audits, partnerships.
  • Continuous Improvement: Metrics, scorecards, and checking whether any of it worked.

Three maturity levels

  • Initial Action: Baseline steps a procurement team can take with limited resources.
  • Intermediate Progress: Structured programmes needing moderate resources and cross-functional work.
  • Advanced Practice: Resource-intensive work for organisations with an established sustainable procurement programme.

You do not have to work through the stages in order. The site's Action Plan Builder lets you tick the actions you want across several subtopics and export them as a Word or PDF plan.

How to start, in practice

  1. Pick three or four material subtopics, not all 29. For most buyers that includes GHG Emissions Data Management, because it underpins every Scope 3 figure you will report.
  2. Place yourself honestly. If you do not yet collect any supplier emissions data, you are at Initial on that subtopic, whatever your corporate targets say.
  3. Select actions across all four stages, not only Strategy & Planning. A policy with no screening question and no metric behind it does not change a purchasing decision.
  4. Consolidate the supplier asks. Read your selection back and list everything it asks suppliers for. Send that as one request, in one format, once a year — not one form per subtopic.
  5. Measure participation before quality. At Initial level the useful numbers are how many suppliers responded and whether they found the request feasible. The framework's Continuous Improvement stage asks for exactly that feedback.

Where teams stall: the supplier data request

Read the Initial actions of several subtopics side by side and a pattern appears. On GHG emissions: ask suppliers to report Scope 1 and 2, add emissions questions to pre-qualification, collect baseline data through standardized templates or platforms, ask for a self-assessment. On forced labour: add screening questions, ask for a self-assessment. Each subtopic, taken alone, is a reasonable request. Taken together they are a stack of questionnaires landing on the same supplier.

The framework itself flags the tension. Its SME Enablement subtopic asks buyers to simplify reporting for small suppliers, to set right-sized expectations, and to accept self-declarations where certifications are out of reach. A buyer implementing Climate and SME Enablement at the same time needs a way to ask for data that does not become a burden.

The practical answer is to agree one standard format for the baseline and let suppliers reuse it. That is what a consolidated supplier questionnaire does on paper, and what an ESG Passport does as a standing profile.

Where EcoDiligence helps, and where it does not

We have mapped 3 of the 29 subtopics against what an EcoDiligence Passport and Supplier Network actually do: GHG Emissions Data Management, Modern-day Slavery and Forced Labour, SME Enablement. The others are not mapped, which means we have not checked them, not that we cover them. Everything a Passport holds is self-reported and not independently audited.

GHG Emissions Data Management

  • PartlyInitial · Strategy & Planning

    Ask suppliers to calculate and report their Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.

    Each supplier's Passport calculates Scope 1 and Scope 2 in tCO₂e from their electricity plus one heating fuel and one vehicle fuel. A supplier burning several fuels of either kind cannot enter them all, and fuel quantities are optional, so a declared fuel with no amount is left out.

  • PartlyInitial · Supplier Selection

    Add basic emissions questions to pre-qualification: do you measure, by what method, from what baseline.

    The Passport shows whether Scope 1 and 2 have been calculated, for which reporting period, and the Scope 2 grid factor and source used. It records whether the supplier has formal environmental goals, with a description, but no structured base year or target.

  • SupportedInitial · Supplier Engagement

    Collect baseline data from suppliers through a standardized template or platform.

    Every invited supplier completes the same guided Passport, so each baseline arrives in one format. Invitations go out individually or by CSV, with up to three automatic reminders a week apart, and you can send more from the dashboard. A supplier who already has a published Passport can share it with your invitation instead of filling in a new one.

  • PartlyInitial · Supplier Engagement

    Ask suppliers to self-assess their measurement practice and data availability.

    A Passport is a self-reported disclosure, labelled as such. It shows what a supplier can produce, but it is not a questionnaire about their measurement capability.

  • SupportedInitial · Continuous Improvement

    Track the share of suppliers disclosing emissions and taking part in engagement.

    The network dashboard shows invited, pending and completed suppliers, the completion rate, and the network average Scope 1 + 2. It does not hold your spend data, so it cannot show share of spend covered.

  • PartlyInitial · Continuous Improvement

    Add basic emissions indicators to supplier scorecards: climate policy, measurement capability, disclosure status.

    Disclosure status and Scope 1 + 2 export as CSV; whether an environmental policy exists is on each supplier's Passport when they answered it (optional), linked from the export. EcoDiligence does not score suppliers — the scorecard stays yours.

  • Not supportedIntermediate · Supplier Selection

    Ask priority suppliers for Scope 3, product-level emissions and primary, activity-based data.

    The Passport covers Scope 1 and 2. It does not calculate Scope 3 or product carbon footprints.

  • Not supportedAdvanced · Supplier Engagement

    Require third-party verified data, verified product footprints, API-level data exchange and cascading to Tier 2+.

    None of these. Passport data is self-reported and not independently audited, and there is no data-exchange API.

Modern-day Slavery and Forced Labour

  • PartlyInitial · Supplier Selection

    Ask at pre-qualification for confirmation of a zero-tolerance policy, plus recruitment and contract practices.

    The Passport can record whether the supplier says a policy prohibiting child and forced labour exists; the question is optional, so it may be blank. It does not ask about labour agencies, recruitment fees, document retention or contract languages.

  • Not supportedInitial · Supplier Engagement

    Require a self-assessment on recruitment, grievance mechanisms and remediation, and request worker data.

    Not collected. This needs a dedicated labour-rights assessment or audit, not a Passport.

SME Enablement

  • SupportedIntermediate · Supplier Selection

    Accept self-declarations from small suppliers in place of certifications they cannot afford.

    A Passport is a structured self-declaration, with any certifications the supplier holds listed as self-declared rather than checked.

  • PartlyInitial · Supplier Selection

    Simplify reporting and onboarding requirements for small suppliers.

    One standard format, free to the supplier, which they reuse for other buyers — shared with a network invitation in one click, or sent as a link or PDF — instead of filling in a bespoke form each time. Contract terms, payment cycles and lot sizes are your procurement decisions.

  • Not supportedInitial · Strategy & Planning

    Measure how much of your spend and supplier base is with SMEs.

    That is spend analysis on your own data. EcoDiligence does not hold your spend.

In short: EcoDiligence handles most of the Initial data collection for Scope 1 and 2 and basic policies — with the limits shown above, such as one heating fuel and one vehicle fuel per supplier — and gives small suppliers a free, reusable way to answer. It does not take you to Intermediate or Advanced on GHG — those need Scope 3, primary product data, and third-party verification, which are for a different kind of tool or an assurance provider. A consistent baseline is what those later steps start from.

Go deeper

Frequently asked questions

A free, online guide from the UN Global Compact Coalition for Sustainable Procurement, launched on 21 September 2026. It helps procurement teams turn sustainability commitments into day-to-day purchasing practice. It is organised into 9 topics and 29 subtopics across environment, social and governance. Each subtopic lists actions across four procurement stages and three maturity levels, and an Action Plan Builder exports your selection as a Word or PDF document.

No. It is voluntary guidance. Its authors describe it as complementing existing regulations, standards and frameworks rather than replacing them: regulation sets what you must achieve, the framework suggests how to operationalise it in procurement.

Primarily procurement teams at buying organisations. Suppliers feel it indirectly: many of its Initial actions are requests to suppliers — screening questions, data requests, self-assessments — so a buyer implementing it will send more of them.

Not in the subtopic pages we reviewed. They tell buyers to add questions to their own pre-qualification and RFPs, run supplier self-assessments, and collect baseline data through standardized templates or platforms, but they leave the form to you. Our sustainable procurement supplier questionnaire is one starting point, built around the Initial actions.

With the subtopics that are material to your spend, at Initial level. The framework says it assumes you already know your most material topics, so if you do not, that assessment comes first. For most teams the first practical bottleneck is the same across subtopics: getting a consistent baseline from suppliers without designing a new form for each one.

No. EcoDiligence handles one part of it: collecting consistent, self-reported baseline data from suppliers, especially small ones. It supports a few Initial actions in full, others only in part, and not at all with the Advanced actions such as third-party verification, verified product footprints or API data exchange. The table on this page shows which is which.

The Supplier Network plan is $79/month or $799/year for 100 supplier slots. Pending, accepted and completed invitations all count toward the limit, so a slot stays used once you have invited someone. Email us if you need the limit raised. The suppliers you invite pay nothing: each creates and keeps their own Passport on the Free plan.

Are you a supplier who received one of these requests? Start with the supplier's guide.

An independent guide. EcoDiligence is not affiliated with or endorsed by the UN Global Compact, and using EcoDiligence does not mean you have implemented the framework. Framework details reflect its website as reviewed on September 22, 2026; the framework may change. This page is practical orientation, not legal advice.

Get a consistent baseline from your suppliers

Invite suppliers to one guided Passport, track who has completed it, and export Scope 1 + 2 across your network. Free for the suppliers.

See Supplier NetworkGet the supplier questionnaire