Procurement control & enforcement mechanisms
Initiative description: Establishing and implementing appropriate control and enforcement mechanisms for suppliers, licensees and sponsors. This includes auditing the fulfilment of the sustainability criteria agreed upon with key suppliers, licensees and sponsors, especially with the goods and services that present more sustainability risk. It also includes establishing and clearly communicating a complaints and dispute resolution mechanism for those who feel the Sustainable Sourcing Code has not been properly implemented.
Following the award of new contracts, tournament organisers worked with suppliers and licensees to ensure that the sustainability commitments were delivered as per the contract clauses. The medium and high-risk procurement categories were actively managed through meetings with suppliers, desk reviews, and environmental and social compliance audits. Between October 2021 and December 2022, 305 sustainability performance and delivery audits were conducted on tournament suppliers*.
The primary objective of these monitoring activities was for tournament organisers to work with suppliers to increase their sustainability awareness and performance. In addition, grievance and remedy mechanisms were made available to all workers within the tournament’s supply chains, to raise any complaints.
*Additional audit programmes have been implemented to ensure companies working on construction sites and tournament-related projects are compliant with the SC’s Worker’s Welfare Standards. For further information, see the enforcement of Workers’ Welfare Standards web page of this report.
Supplier audits
FIFA, Q22 and SC suppliers engaged on capital projects or those providing services for the tournament that were identified as having medium or high sustainability risks, were required to undergo sustainability audits.
Two types of supplier audits were conducted:
Sustainability performance audit aimed at addressing the degree of compliance with the Sustainable Sourcing Code by suppliers in their daily operations and activities. For example, do suppliers have policies and procedures in place for the segregation and recycling of waste in their offices, premises, production sites etc., and are they being implemented.
Sustainability delivery audit aimed at addressing the degree of compliance with the Sustainable Sourcing Code by suppliers while delivering their services specifically for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™. For example, are suppliers correctly segregating and recycling waste while delivering their services, such as catering, security, transportation, and cleaning etc.
Sustainability performance audit
These audits were carried out by an independent auditing agency. Where an audit identified that a supplier was failing to meet the tournament organisers’ sustainability requirements, the supplier was required to implement a corrective action plan (CAP) to achieve full compliance within a time frame stipulated by the tournament organisers. A follow-up audit was then conducted to confirm that the supplier had implemented the corrective actions and was fully compliant. Where a supplier was found not to be fully compliant, further audits were undertaken, and, in certain cases, temporary contingency actions were requested to cover the major nonconformities in the form of additional requirements such as certifications and the hiring of dedicated technical experts.
In most cases, suppliers were able to address the majority of non-conformities during this process and had plans in place for those that were outstanding. As of 31 December 2022, 212 audits had been conducted on 56 suppliers and 531 non-conformities had been addressed out of 935 detected during the first audit (57% closure rate). Given the low level of maturity on sustainability matters of a number of suppliers as well as the short timeframe to address all identified non-conformities, this was considered a success. The audit programme was crucial for the tournament organisers to manage the sustainability risks in their supply chains and many suppliers also welcomed the programme as it helped them to improve their sustainability performance.
Sustainability delivery audit
These audits were conducted by SC Sustainability team members and by an independent auditor agency at both official sites (such as stadiums) and non-official sites (such as the Corniche) during the tournament.
Suppliers were also audited while delivering their services on-site. In this case, in order to expedite procedures given the limited time available during the tournament, the interaction focused on highlighting any major non-conformities with the sustainability requirements and suggesting practical solutions to close the non-conformities, taking into consideration the specific operational context.
93 audits were conducted during tournament time.
Licensees and Commercial Affiliates
For FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ licensed merchandise suppliers, FIFA conducted human rights and environmental monitoring with a focus on local high-risk licensees, to ensure they and their manufacturers met contractual sustainability obligations.
Between 2021 and 2022, the manufacturers of 75% of locally based licensees that were considered high-risk, were assessed to ensure their merchandise was manufactured in accordance with international labour, social and environmental standards. A total of 33 manufacturers of these local licensees were reviewed, of which two were not approved due to the seriousness of non-compliances found. An additional 28 manufacturers of high-risk international licensees were assessed, of which one was also not approved.
It is the first time that such an engagement with licensees on sustainability requirements has been conducted ahead of a FIFA World Cup™. As a result, FIFA has considerably increased the transparency of its supply chains, as well as the understanding of associated risks, while creating a mechanism to manage these risks appropriately. At the same time, it has raised awareness among licensees of the importance that FIFA places on social and environmental sustainability, and of their responsibility to monitor their own suppliers.
As with previous FIFA World Cups, the tournament organisers worked in partnership with commercial affiliates with the aim to meet the Sustainability Strategy's objectives related to the provision of Value in Kind contributions, activations, as well as other major goods provided or used during the tournament.
Complaints and Dispute Resolution
Grievance and remedy mechanisms were established to enable workers to raise concerns and for these to be addressed in a timely manner. As part of the SC’s Workers’ Welfare three-tier grievance mechanism, an anonymous grievance hotline was made available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It was publicised among the workers and accessible in ten different languages. For more information about this mechanism please visit the grievance and remedy mechanisms for workers web page of this report.
FIFA also put in place a Human Rights Grievance Mechanism for any person who wished to report human rights concerns in relation to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™, including related supply chains, which was also available 24/7 and in 7 different languages. For more information about this mechanism please visit the FIFA human rights grievance mechanism web page of this report.