The Power of Socially Responsible Purchasing

Amazon Business is committed to exploring the transformative power of socially responsible spending and can support your initiatives by making it easier to buy from small, diverse, or local businesses. Keep reading to learn more about how your organization can leverage its purchasing power to create ethical, meaningful change through an OMNIA Partners contract with Amazon Business. 

What Is Socially Responsible Purchasing and Why Is It Important?

Socially Responsible Purchasing helps organizations meet environmental, social, governance (ESG) goals by identifying, guiding, and reporting toward certified diverse, local businesses, and products with sustainability certifications. Examples of this may be offering more sustainable products, sourcing locally, providing customers with diverse business backgrounds, and allowing for "frustration-free packaging" options at checkout. 

Amazon Business embraces the Amazon-wide commitment to sustainability and seeks to enable businesses around the world to reduce their environmental impact and meet sustainability goals while not sacrificing on cost savings. In addition to sustainability, buying from Amazon Business from local and diverse sellers means combining procurement expertise with tools to help organizations define, meet, and proactively measure progress against social responsibility and sustainability goals.

For Amazon Business, being socially responsible also means helping organizations operationalize and scale responsible purchasing programs by doing the hard work of finding, retaining, and nurturing suppliers – so that customers don’t have to. Organizations can discover, purchase, and track spend from certified local and diverse suppliers or purchase sustainable products easy by highlighting sellers or products.

How Does Amazon Business Promote Socially Responsible Purchasing?

Amazon Business has simplified the process of finding and purchasing products with sustainability certifications. They partnered with trusted third-party certifications and created their own certifications, Compact by Design and Pre-Owned Certified, to highlight products that meet sustainability standards and help preserve the natural world. These products are easy to find as they are labeled as "Climate Pledge Friendly." You can shop over 300,000 products with this label from 40+ certifiers, making it easily accessible for customers to find what they are looking for.

Similarly, Amazon Business has made it easy for organizations to refocus their spending to support local businesses. There are now features through Amazon Business that allow customers to support the growth of local businesses and strengthen community relationships, including:

• • Allowing administrators to personalize a message for buyers explaining any organization-wide or departmental buying policies, set a pricing threshold for offers, and customize the area you prefer as local.
  • Highlighting offers from preferred local sellers within the buyer's shopping experience based on criteria set by the account administrator.
  • Tracking spend with local businesses and simplify reporting on corporate or team goals (through Amazon Business Analytics).

Another way that Amazon Business supports socially responsible purchasing is by promoting various seller credentials like Veteran-owned, Women-owned, Hispanic-owned, and Black-owned businesses. Businesses selling through Amazon Business can add different certifications to help customers meet specific spending target or sourcing objectives. You can discover these types of businesses by looking for seller credentials under the "add to cart" button when viewing a product page.

By embracing socially responsible purchasing with Amazon Business, businesses not only contribute to a more sustainable world but also position themselves as leaders in corporate social responsibility. As well as through its partnerships with socially conscious suppliers, Amazon Business empowers businesses to align their procurement strategies with their values. 

OMNIA Partners & Amazon Business 

OMNIA Partners members can create a free Amazon Business account or link an existing account to your organization's primary amazon business account as an "associated account" to receive special membership benefits.  

• 50% discount on eligible business prime membership plans for the first two years. Receive faster shipping with Business Prime membership 
• 10% off select 2,000+ Amazon private label products 
• Access to 500+ top breakroom products at low, stable prices
  • Purchase everything from batteries to snacks
  • Prices remain stable for 12 weeks to help enhance your budgeting ability
• Two-day shipping with Business Prime
• Pre-approval for a pay by invoice credit line of $5,000 (terms and conditions apply) 

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with Amazon Business, create approval processes that are similar to your existing and provide a simplified buying process for your buyer. 

Interested in learning more?