Electrolux puts procurement inside product, and asks for carbon at design stage

Electrolux's new head of procurement reports to the chief product officer and plans to judge suppliers on carbon footprint. That moves the supplier data question to the point where a part is chosen.

Electrolux

Electrolux Group named Daniele Rossi head of procurement in a press release dated 23 September. He started on 1 September and reports to Michelle Shi-Verdaasdonk, who became chief product officer in January after 14 months as chief procurement officer. Procurement now sits inside Electrolux's new product organisation. Rossi comes from Acciaierie d'Italia, where he was chief procurement officer, and has more than 30 years in procurement, supply chain, quality and product development.

He says he will work with direct-material suppliers to co-develop sustainable products and speed time to market, and that sustainability and responsible sourcing are a must-have for modern procurement. Electrolux wants to evaluate suppliers on carbon footprint, environmental performance and labour standards, and to drive design-to-cost work in the early stages of R&D.

Why the reporting line matters

Rossi's own argument is about cost: complexity and cost are cheapest to reduce before a product reaches production, which is why he wants procurement involved in the early stage of R&D. The same logic applies to carbon. Once a component is specified, the buyer is choosing between suppliers of a fixed design. When procurement works inside the product organisation, the question becomes which component, material or supplier gives the lower footprint for the same function.

That needs carbon data at the level of the thing being bought: the supplier, and increasingly the product. A product carbon footprint from one supplier is only useful if the buyer can tell how good it is, and a stack of PDFs in different formats makes that slow.

Also moving

Schneider Electric appointed Lena Henry on 5 October to lead its energy and sustainability consulting business, succeeding Steve Wilhite, who is leaving after more than 25 years. Henry has been at Schneider since 2023, where she led global customer experience and commercial transformation. Before that she held senior roles at Whirlpool, EssilorLuxottica and McKinsey.

Carbon data at the point of choice

DitchCarbon holds supplier-specific emissions at spend, activity and product level, and its free PCF Evaluator grades a supplier's product carbon footprint for data quality and plausibility before it enters a calculation.