Europe is still at the beginning of its journey towards supplier diversity. The authors and organisations involved in this Handbook have, however, been involved in supplier diversity activity, within a European context, since 2002. During that time they have worked with hundreds of large purchasing organisations, thousands of small and medium enterprises (many of them ‘under-represented’ businesses), governments and many related stakeholders.

Interest in supplier diversity has built significantly in recent years and many more organisations have become involved. A major challenge has existed, though, in accessing good practice and learning.

This Handbook aims to summarise the years of learning so far and to provide a platform from which to move forward. It seeks to answer the questions that the authors are so often asked, such as “Why should we care about supplier diversity?”, “What can we do to implement it?”

The Handbook examines the context of supplier diversity in Europe and activity undertaken to date. There is a particular focus on the situation in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Sweden as the UK, France and Germany are the largest economic powers and Sweden is culturally positioned between the UK and continental Europe.

The Handbook comprises two parts:

• Part One includes data on the population and business demographics of the four countries and a summary of legislation within them that is relevant to supplier diversity
• Part Two analyses the business case for supplier diversity from the perspective of large purchasing organisations (‘the demand-side’), small and medium enterprises (‘the supply side’) and policymakers, and summarises supplier diversity activity undertaken to date.

Much of what is contained in Part One underpins the detail of Part Two and, together, they lead to a set of conclusions and recommendations.

The authors envisage that this Handbook will be used to promote the benefits of supplier diversity for the whole of the public, private and third sectors and to encourage more businesses and public bodies to promote and implement it.

It is anticipated that this will ultimately result in improved economic opportunities for economically under-represented communities, and performance benefits for large purchasing organisations, leading to benefits for the economy as a whole.

This Handbook is funded by Supplier Diversity Europe, Migration Policy Group (MPG) and the Economic and Social Research Council.