Aviva Canada Accelerates Their Suppliers On the Road to a Net Zero Supply Chain

Insurance company Aviva has a global ambition – they want to have a net-zero supply chain by 2030 and a fully net-zero company by 2040, and they understand this goal cannot be achieved alone. Working with suppliers to reduce emissions and decarbonize its supply chain is as challenging as it is critical to success. Aviva Canada’s suppliers come from a range of industries; from IT and professional services, to more specialized claims suppliers of various sizes including property restoration, dry cleaning, auto repair, professional services, and more. It was vital that Aviva Canada design a net-zero strategy that could meet the unique and varied needs of their unique and varied suppliers.

The strategy they ultimately devised to reach their goal is designed to help equip suppliers, regardless of industry and size, with the tools they need to understand key concepts in sustainability, develop GHG inventories, and to set targets with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

To achieve this, Aviva Canada knew that they needed to identify where the information and knowledge gaps existed and assess the most successful approaches for engaging their suppliers.

The company conducted a benchmarking exercise which involved looking at eight comparator companies (from the insurance industry and others with similarly ambitious net-zero ambitions) to identify trends, pitfalls, learnings and best practices to inform strategy design. Additionally, through research and surveying internal Aviva Canada teams who manage relationships with suppliers, they identified opportunities and barriers to supplier engagement.

This initial research indicated that the biggest barriers were faced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across both corporate and claims suppliers. These smaller suppliers often need additional support due to a general lack of in-house expertise and tools required in order to estimate emissions and set targets.

The next step in building the strategy involved designing and deploying a comprehensive survey of Aviva Canada’s suppliers to assess their net-zero readiness and maturity and develop a measurable baseline. This survey also helped identify challenges suppliers faced with setting science-based targets and committing to the SBTi. The results of this survey were then fed into a maturity model that played a critical role in forming the supplier engagement strategy. The results of the survey indicated that Aviva Canada needed to focus on their less mature SMEs and claims suppliers in order to help make progress towards its net-zero ambitions.

With this initial research and benchmarking completed, Aviva Canada’s formal supplier engagement strategy was developed and set into motion. Aviva got that ball rolling with their first annual Net Zero Supplier Summit–an annual conference aimed at engaging Aviva Canada’s suppliers in their collective net-zero journey—in April 2023. They used the first Summit to begin engaging suppliers in conversations on sustainability and net-zero, focusing content on a high-level introduction to climate science and the need to reduce GHG emissions. The Summit also introduced suppliers to science-based targets and SBTi, and reinforced Aviva’s ask of suppliers to set themselves science-based targets. The Summit also provided an opportunity to gauge interest from suppliers in Aviva’s pilot education program – the Net Zero Supplier Accelerator Program.

Using feedback and results from a survey of Summit participants and additional one-on-one conversations with key suppliers, Aviva Canada began recruiting participants for the Accelerator pilot. They targeted a range of suppliers from a multitude of sectors including auto repair, property restoration, legal services, software solutions, professional services and transportation and logistics. The Accelerator was piloted from June to August 2023 to test program materials with a small initial group of suppliers and understand their learning outcomes and progress towards committing to SBTi. This provided a tremendous opportunity to gather feedback before reaching out to a larger supplier group. The results of the Accelerator pilot were very positive and indicated that suppliers’ SBTi readiness and net-zero maturity had increased, with the nine out of ten Accelerator pilot participants having committed to or set targets with SBTi or begun preparations to do so.

Upon conclusion of the Accelerator pilot, opportunities were identified to streamline the learning materials to ensure they met the needs of suppliers encountering new terminology and other technical aspects of carbon accounting for the first time. This information was used to develop an overall strategy and implementation plan for the official launch in February 2024.

By including everything from five modules worth of live webinars covering a wide variety of topics to custom-developed GHG carbon calculators, the Net Zero Supplier Accelerator provides Aviva’s suppliers with vital education and assistance on their personal and collective journey to net-zero.

To further support suppliers with their net-zero journey, Aviva Canada partners with Upswing Solutions to offer each supplier two hours of one-on-one consulting where they can get personalized support with any specific questions or challenges unique to their business. Most suppliers utilize this consulting time to review their GHG inventories and carbon calculations.

The full Accelerator program is already repeating the success of the pilot. In the first cohort of the 2024 Accelerator program, 100% of suppliers interviewed so far have upped their readiness score, and begun developing or improving capacity towards net-zero. By stepping on the accelerator and helping their suppliers step up to the challenge of net-zero, this insurance group is helping to ensure a better future for all of us.