October is Indigenous Business Month and at IMC we are proud of nurturing and building our relationships with multiple Indigenous Businesses that are supplying goods and services that keep our projects moving for our clients.
IMC’s affiliate company Indigenous Partnerships Australia, (IPA) was formed with the express purpose of partnering with Traditional Owner Businesses. IPA support IMC’s Aboriginal Engagement on our sites through our partner businesses IMC NEMMS JV and IMC Mata Kurlu JV.
We track our spend by site and by category and we reflect on these figures periodically to ensure we not only meet our targets but identify any further opportunities to improve. In reviewing the past 3 years we have seen a huge improvement driven by changes to our policies and procedures. From 2017 to 2019 there was an 832% increase in spend across our supplier categories and the number of suppliers increased 85%.
Across the whole business we have spent a total of $2.7 million to date this year and are ahead in spend compared to this time last year. We engage businesses across a wide range of services including plant hire & equipment, medical services, signage, labour hire, training services, accommodation, catering, stationery and printing.
Our project teams strive for positive indigenous engagement with the support of our Indigenous Business Manager and the procurement team to assist in the building of a thriving Indigenous Business Sector.