What it means when a vendor sits within TechForGood’s Connected Procurement Framework
Most organisations don’t really know what sits upstream of the technology they rely on every day.
Not just laptops — phones, servers, network equipment, cloud infrastructure, and the materials inside them. Increasingly, this also includes the hardware and data-centre capacity powering AI.
Most organisations don’t know whether child labour exists somewhere in those supply chains. They don’t know whether rivers are being poisoned by mining runoff. They don’t know how safe or regulated the extraction of critical materials actually is — even as AI dramatically increases demand for compute, energy, water, and hardware.
That lack of visibility isn’t because organisations don’t care. It’s because technology supply chains are vast, global, and opaque — and for a long time, it has been possible not to look too closely. If you weren’t required to ask the question, you weren’t required to answer it.
That position is changing.
Modern Slavery legislation has already shifted expectations. AASB-aligned climate and sustainability reporting will go further, pulling environmental and social risk in technology supply chains into formal, auditable disclosures. What was once voluntary is becoming regulated. What was once abstract is becoming something organisations will be expected to explain, evidence, and stand behind.
The problem is that most organisations are not resourced to deal with this across their entire technology stack. Assessing ESG, human rights, environmental harm, and governance risk across dozens of technology vendors takes time, capability, and sustained investment — and until now, that cost has rarely been built into ICT procurement.
- The gap is structural.
- It’s cultural.
- And it’s driven by cost.
The Connected Procurement Framework exists because of that gap.
When a vendor appears within TechForGood’s Connected Procurement Framework, it means TechForGood has undertaken a documented, vendor-level assessment focused on ESG and governance risks that are material to technology procurement and relevant to Australian regulatory and reporting expectations.
This isn’t a marketing label. It’s a starting point.
Taking the first bite
Most organisations aren’t stuck because they don’t care. They’re stuck because the work is complex, expensive, and hard to start without support.
The Connected Procurement Framework is built on a simple idea: you don’t need to solve everything at once — but you do need a first credible step, and you don’t have to take it alone.
TechForGood takes that first bite by establishing a defensible baseline. We review authoritative public disclosures relating to environmental governance, modern slavery and human rights risk, corporate ethics and accountability, and other ESG issues that are material to technology supply chains.
This work happens before vendors sit inside the procurement pathway. Customers are not starting from zero, not relying on assumptions, and not postponing difficult questions until a reporting deadline or audit forces the issue.
It doesn’t make the problem disappear. It doesn’t claim the supply chain is clean. It acknowledges reality and moves it forward.
Built to improve, not to tick a box
The Connected Procurement Framework is not a one-off check.
Each assessment establishes a baseline and highlights where transparency, controls, or disclosures are still immature. Vendors are revisited as standards tighten, regulation evolves, and expectations rise.
Progress matters — not perfection.
This approach avoids two common failures in responsible procurement: walking away from complexity because it’s uncomfortable, or declaring the work “done” when it clearly isn’t.
What inclusion means — and what it doesn’t
When a vendor appears within the Connected Procurement Framework, it means TechForGood is satisfied that the vendor meets baseline requirements for responsible procurement, based on available evidence and disclosures.
It does not mean the supply chain is risk-free, that environmental harm does not exist, or that labour abuses have been eliminated. Assessments apply at the vendor or parent-entity level only and are subject to ongoing review as disclosures, risks, and regulatory expectations evolve.
TechForGood doesn’t pretend to solve the entire problem.
We create visibility where there was none, establish a place to begin, and keep building from there — because in technology procurement, doing nothing is no longer defensible.
