Our supply chain

At Downer, our supply chain includes suppliers of raw, direct and indirect materials, skilled labour and services required for our operations and the supply of a wide range of legal, technical and administrative professional services.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander supplier diversity

We are committed to creating opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their communities through our memberships with Supply Nation and Social Traders, which directs procurement activities to accredited Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-owned businesses and disadvantaged Australians to achieve value for money.  Our calendar year 2018 spend with Social Traders was five million, and for Supply Nation members:

In addition to this we operate several indigenous join ventures , such as our Waayni JV.

Managing human rights modern slavery

Downer supports fundamental human rights and the prevention of modern slavery and human trafficking.

Downer has developed a plan, overseen by a multi-disciplinary steering group reporting to Downer’s Board, to revise and strengthen our sustainable procurement management framework and incorporate modern slavery requirements. 

We have identified the key areas where the Commonwealth’s Modern Slavery Act 2018 and NSW Modern Slavery Act 2018 may impact Downer, undertaken a gap analysis of our processes, and undertaken high-level risk assessments of our workforce and supply chains.  From this we have determined that our greatest risk exposure is within our supply chain, but it is focused in our lower spend categories.

Ensuring that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in Downer’s supply chain, beyond our direct suppliers, remains a challenge. However, we are implementing a risk-based approach and are committed to continuous improvement through the above measures, including engaging with our direct suppliers to educate, assess and encourage continuous improvement in their own capacity to manage modern slavery risks in their subcontractors and broader supply chain.

Downer is a founding member of the Australian Supply Chain Sustainability School, which is an online collaborative library of information on sustainable procurement topics and best practice. We make this resource tool available to our subcontractors and suppliers.

Additionally, Downer has reviewed our own labour practices and supply chain through updates to our existing frameworks, policies and processes to take into consideration modern slavery, in accordance with the Commonwealth’s legislation. Downer welcomes the opportunity to produce its Modern Slavery Statement (prior to 31 December 2020) in accordance with its obligations to report under the legislation.

We are taking steps to strengthen our supplier onboarding and monitoring processes to highlight modern slavery risk areas. Where suppliers are found to be non-compliant with our Standards of Business Conduct and contract terms requiring those suppliers to carry out remedial action, we will assist and educate them to improve their processes.

Through our focus on diversity, sustainability and modern slavery, Downer meets our needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only for Downer, but also to society and the economy whilst minimising damage to the environment.