Support your SME supply chain

A sustainable and responsible supply chain is important to the way you do business – your suppliers contribute to your carbon footprint, they’re part of your responsible business strategy and they reflect your values. So, making sure you’re working with businesses who are doing good for people, places and the planet is vital.

At Heart of the City, we’ve been working with SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises with up to 250 employees) for over 20 years. And we know one of their biggest struggles is keeping up with sustainability and responsible business when they don’t have the budgets and people power that bigger businesses do. Helping those smaller businesses you work with to be more resilient and responsible is a brilliant way to keep your own ESG goals on track and give back to SMEs in your value chain.

Whether it’s by sponsoring your SME suppliers to take part in our programmes, engaging us to deliver bespoke training for them or becoming an ambassador, with our help you can build a resilient and sustainable supply chain.

Why do it?

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Sponsoring SMEs to learn with us is great for your business – giving them this long-term opportunity has a really positive impact on engagement and building relationships. Getting to know them on this level will build you a pipeline of SME suppliers that align with your ESG goals – and the closer they get to net zero, the closer you do too:

Contribute to a fair and sustainable economy
Build up responsible business and sustainability within your organisation
Support multiple Sustainable Development Goals

Sponsor your SMEs onto our programmes

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You can sponsor your SME suppliers onto our Foundations for Responsible Business programme or our Net Zero Accelerator programme. They’ll join the SMEs we’re already working with and connect with experts in responsible business and sustainability to embed responsible business into the way they work, or make a plan to reach net zero.

Some of our ambassador companies including PwC, Freshfields, Schroders, Siemens and UBS are currently sponsoring suppliers to work with us, supporting their SMEs and social enterprises to be more resilient, sustainable and responsible.

Get started now

“Heart of the City’s Foundations for Responsible Business programme is a game-changer for SMEs. The programme’s three pillars: climate, people and community, have given our sponsored suppliers the tools and support to start and accelerate their environmental and social corporate programmes, helping them meet increasing customer requirements and future proofing their business.” Rebecca Goosen, Head of Supply Chain Sustainability, Schroders

Bespoke training

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We can create and deliver bespoke training programmes especially for your SME suppliers. We’ll work with you to develop a course, or a one day workshop, on specific sustainable and responsible business topics that your supply chain wants to learn about. We’ll bring in experts from our network and give your suppliers access to an online learning platform, helping their business have a positive impact and improving your business as a result.

Find out how we did this with Grosvenor in 2022 with our award-winning Supplier Mentoring Programme.

Discuss bespoke training

Become an ambassador

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Become a Heart of the City ambassador to offer volunteering opportunities to your employees and share your expertise with our SMEs who don’t have the same budgets and responsible business teams as bigger businesses.

Our ambassadors help us by speaking at our events, writing resources for our resource hub and Climate Action Toolkit and talking to our SMEs on specific responsible business topics at 1:1 sessions. It’s a brilliant way to give back to the responsible business community and support people doing this alongside their jobs at smaller businesses.

Find out more

Thanks to the businesses already working with us

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Freshfields
Grosvenor
PwC
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Siemens
UBS

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