Responsible Sourcing & Supply Chain Management

Our Vendor Code of Conduct

Our Vendor Code of Conduct (Code) is the cornerstone of our responsible sourcing and supply chain strategy and describes the expectations we have of our vendors to conduct business responsibly.  It encompasses areas of ethical business practices, labor and human rights including paying living wages, creating inclusive work force practices and addressing the environmental impact of a vendor’s business, managing business continuity risk in the provision of goods and services to us, and effective governance procedures. All vendors who wish to work with us are expected to adhere to the Code and are encouraged to communicate and enforce its provisions throughout their own organization and supply chain. 

Due Diligence

We require vendors who wish to bid for the provision of goods and services to respond to specific due diligence questions relating to environmental stewardship and human rights, including modern slavery.

We are committed to assessing our vendors for various environmental and social risks, including governance practices related to those topics, embedding risk screening criteria into our vendor management platform with the aim of identifying vendors with higher inherent risks. This enables us to conduct deeper assessments focused on our vendors’ controls to identify and mitigate various risks, which may include environmental risks or modern slavery and human trafficking concerns. Additionally, we screen all vendors against an extensive set of media, government and regulatory sources to identify potentially adverse information, both during the on-boarding process and during the life of vendor contracts.

Modern Slavery

We take seriously our responsibility to help protect, preserve and promote human rights. We are committed to assessing risks and acting to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking from taking place within our business and supply chain.

We publish a Statement on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking annually which sets out the actions we have taken to assess and address the risks of modern slavery practices in our business and our supply chain.   

Small Vendor Program

At Goldman Sachs, a wide array of goods and services is needed to support our business operations, and we work hard to partner with the best businesses available to achieve our business objectives.  We previously set a three-year goal for engaging small and diverse vendors which expires this year, and we are proud of the progress we have made in encouraging a wide range of vendors to apply to work with us. As we move forward, we remain focused on driving competition and innovation within our supply chain and will continue to develop programs consistent with our commitment to welcome qualified businesses into our vendor network. 

Our Small Vendor Program aims to break down barriers to market access for small businesses of all backgrounds, enabling them to compete on an equal basis for business opportunities. This helps us to drive competitiveness and innovation in our supply chain, stimulate positive socio-economic impact and reflects  the communities where we live and work and the clients we serve around the world.

 

Read more on our progress in our latest Sustainability Report.