Tom Raftery

One final question:
Can procurement really become a profit driver, or are we just rewriting a fantasy with better storytelling?

👇 Let me know 👇

#sustainablesupplychain, #procurementstrategy, #cleanenergy, #utilities, #electrification, #supplychainresilience, #podcast

8/8

Procurement’s Evolution: Tactical Past, Strategic Present, Profitable Future - Sustainable Supply Chain Procurement’s role is changing, or at least, it should be. In this episode of the Sustainable Supply Chain podcast, I sat down with Conrad Snover, CEO of ProcureAbility, to unpack why procurement stil...

If you’re in supply chain, sustainability, or utilities… this episode will hit home.

Listen in and let me know what you think.

🎙️ www.sustainablesupplychainpodcast.com/354320/episo...

7/8

One answer: treat suppliers like partners, not line items.
Build trust. Share demand signals.

This isn’t about just-in-case hoarding, it’s about collaborative resilience.

6/8

He also made a point I can’t stop thinking about:
* Procurement reports on what we did
* But sustainability needs foresight - strategy, forecasting, scenario planning

So how do we shift from rearview mirror to windscreen?

5/8

Conrad’s take? Procurement must EARN its seat at the strategy table.

That means:
→ Delivering measurable value
→ Thinking long-term
→ Asking better questions (not just “how much?” but “why this?” and “is there a better way?”)

4/8

Most orgs still treat procurement as a clerical task. Take an order. Place the order. Hope it arrives.

In a world of multi-year lead times and grid decarbonisation? That’s not just risky, it’s reckless. 3/8

🎧 On the latest episode of the #Sustainable #SupplyChain podcast, I spoke to Conrad Snover, CEO of ProcureAbility.

We talked transformer shortages, electrification, and how to redesign procurement from the ground up. 2/8

Procurement is broken. Here’s how we fix it.
Too often, procurement is seen as a bottleneck. Slow, reactive, stuck in the past.
But what if it could be a profit centre, and a catalyst for a more sustainable future? #sustainability
🧵1/8

Trump orders nuclear submarines moved near Russia after ‘foolish and inflammatory statements’ from Medvedev – live US president says decision comes after former Russian president said Trump should remember Moscow had Soviet-era nuclear strike capabilities

Oh FFS 🤦🏼‍♂️ Alright we’ll shut up about the Epstein files.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...

I doubt anyone would cry (apart from the fossil fuel companies)!

LOL! No-one will ever accuse me of knowing too much!!!

Awesome, I'm surprised no-one has so far. I've mentioned it here and there, but no-one up 'til now has taken any notice. Honestly, I think this is potentially huge, but then what do I know? IANAL

Do you want to be the 21st century's Ford Pinto?

If I had a fossil fuel company as a client right now, I'd be doing a cost benefit analysis of how much I'm receiving in revenue from them vs legal liability for enabling them more efficiently destroy the planet.
With the advances in attribution science, this becomes all the more urgent.

Also, companies could face domestic lawsuits in national courts, using the ICJ opinion as persuasive authority.

But, indirect liability for these companies is possible through national or transnational litigation. Climate affected states, NGO's, could sue other countries for failing to regulate companies, and take a case to the ICJ.

If I were a cloud or ERP provider to fossil fuel companies right now, I'd be checking with Legal if enabling fossil fuel clients to more efficiently destroy the planet is a sound business strategy (millions in revenue vs billions in legal liabilities & reputational risk)

The ICJ ruling does not directly impose liability on companies, but it raises the legal stakes for corporate climate inaction or complicity. Companies that fail to reduce emissions, or that enable others to pollute, face:
Domestic regulation
Litigation risk
Reputational damage
Financial liability

All the tech companies providing tech, cloud services, maintenance, legal services, etc to fossil fuel companies are now potentially legally liable!

Thanks Richard for the mention in the essay. One thing not mentioned which I think bears talking about is the impact of the ICJ ruling on companies. If I’m a fossil fuel company, or supplying goods/services to a fossil fuel company I could well be in breach of the ruling.

A New Era: Renewables Surpass Coal in Global Electricity Generation For the first time, renewable electricity generation is expected to surpass coal, marking a significant transformation in the global energy landscape. This shift, driven by economic and technological advancements, emphasises the importance of clean energy sources, while also highlighting the need for improved grid flexibility and energy independence.

A New Era: Renewables Surpass Coal in Global Electricity Generation

For the first time, renewable electricity generation is expected to surpass coal, marking a significant transformation in the global energy landscape. This shift, driven by economic and technological advancements, emphasises the…

AI Labs, EV Wins, and the Legal Risk Hiding in Supply Chains AI-built vaccines, solid-state EVs, climate lawsuits, and sand batteries - this week’s clean tech stories are wild, weird, and game-changing.

FutureProof is my free weekly newsletter.
It goes out every Thursday to 3,100+ subscribers
with a 50%+ open rate.

It’s fast, fun, and packed with clean tech wins and real talk.

👉 Subscribe here: newsletter.tomraftery.com/p/i-asked-a-... 7/7

Plus:
→ GPT-5 is looming
→ Microsoft Edge can now think for you
→ And the ICJ ruling that could nuke your Scope 3 risk 6/7

Also: marine carbon removal.
Controversial? Yes.
But I put the hard questions to the CEO of Gigablue.
You can judge for yourself. 5/7

Texas just fired up a grid battery built from scrapped EV packs.
Finland’s heating homes with hot sand.
Colorado’s storing energy with salt.

This is not your 2015 energy transition. 4/7

EVs?
Cleaner than ICE cars, even when made with coal power.
And now… cheaper, too. That sound you hear? Fossil fuel FUD crumbling. 3/7

The ECB quietly made polluting assets worth less.
As in: “Your dirty bond is now worth 82c, not €1.”

That’s not green talk—that’s monetary policy. 2/7

AI Labs, EV Wins, and the Legal Risk Hiding in Supply Chains AI-built vaccines, solid-state EVs, climate lawsuits, and sand batteries - this week’s clean tech stories are wild, weird, and game-changing.

This week’s FutureProof newsletter might be our weirdest one yet—in the best possible way.

An AI lab built its own team of virtual scientists.

They brainstormed, ran experiments, and designed new COVID nanobodies… all before I’d finished my coffee. 🧵 1/7
newsletter.tomraftery.com/p/i-asked-a-...

There are lots of non-Tesla options. Mine is a Kia EV3 for example. Great car. And battery lifetime of EVs is typically around 250,000km, after which they can be repurposed or recycled, unlike ICE cars where the fuel is single use.

Thanks, I love mine!