1. Sustainable procurement
Train the Trainer
Jimmy Brannigan

2. EAF Programme Background Three year project
Reducing negative environmental and social impacts through purchasing
Steering group, partners from Further Education and Higher Education
Training
Train the trainer
Policy and strategy development
Risk based approach to procurement
Supplier engagement
Social issues in procurement

3. Sustainable procurement
Agenda
09.00 Registration
09.30 Introductions and objectives
10.00 What is sustainable procurement?
10.20 Barriers to sustainable procurement
10.45 Break
11.00 The business case – Presentations
12.00 Networking Lunch

4. Sustainable procurement
12.45 Where are the opportunities?
Review the latest guidance on implementing sustainable procurement
14.15 Break
What can we do now?
How can we use the latest guidance on implementing sustainable procurement?

5. Sustainable procurement
15.15 Report back and prioritisation – Including communication styles
15.45 Action planning
16.00 Close

6. Style of the day
Challenging
Practical
Dialogue based
Interactive

7. Objectives
Develop a shared understanding of what we mean by sustainable procurement
Develop a thorough understanding of the business case for sustainable procurement
Support participants communicate sustainable procurement to key players within their organisation

8. Objectives
Develop participants confidence when implementing sustainable procurement within their institution
Introduce participants to the latest guidance materials and support when implementing sustainable procurement

9. Introductions
Briefly
You and your organisation
Why you are here

10. What is sustainable development?

11. What is sustainable procurement?
Definition for a non procurement professional

12. Definition
“Sustainable purchasing is all about taking environmental and social factors into account in purchasing decisions. It’s about looking at what your products are made of, where they come from and who has made them”
HEPS Sustainable Purchasing Guidance – Section 1

13. Definition
“Sustainability in the supply chain is fundamentally about identifying problematic social, environmental and H&S issues throughout the supply chain. Assessing their impact and risks, and then trying to improve them”

14. What are the barriers to sustainable procurement within your institution?

15. Barriers to Sustainable Procurement National Audit Office
Whist there is a high level of commitment to national targets; there is often a low level of understanding of the exact requirements, therefore creating an ‘implementation gap’ – the gap between policy and practice.
Even with a high level commitment in the shape of policies and specific targets, this becomes heavily diluted by the time it reaches the Procurement Departments. A lot of the sustainability issues are lost and replaced instead by ‘best value’ often easily translated to cheapest price.
The link needs to be made between sustainability, efficiency and cost savings.

16. Barriers to Sustainable Procurement National Audit Office
Procurement staff are often not trained in sustainability issues and do not understand how to achieve the targets. It is often the case that the will to procure in a sustainable manner is strong, yet the procurement teams are unable to complete the task. This often includes a basic misunderstanding of the term ‘sustainable procurement’.
Lack of knowledge in this area has often resulted of the seeming lack of understanding of the role of sustainability in risk assessments.

17. Barriers to Sustainable Procurement National Audit Office
In Summary
Lack of sustainable procurement training and guidance
Poor understanding of targets and requirements
Taking a short term view.

18. Presenting the business case
Presentations

19. Presenting the business case
Read through the summary document of all of the reasons and explanations as to why this is a good thing ‘the business case’ and prepare 8 minute presentation to convince one of the following
Finance manager
Devolved purchaser
Estates manger / project manager construction project
A student

20. Presenting the business case
De-brief

21. The business case – why do it?
Employee
expectations
Stakeholder
demands
Benchmarking
Customer
requirements
Risk
management
Legislation &
Standards
Business
efficiencies
Impact Reduction
(environmental)

22. Current management focus
Impacts and Opportunities (Environment)
High
Environmental
Footprint
Natural
Resources
Transportation
Manufacturing
Product
Distribution
Consumers
Low
Supply Chain

23. Current management focus
Current Management Effort (Environment)
High
Environmental
Footprint
Natural
Resources
Transportation
Manufacturing
Product
Distribution
Consumers
Low
Supply Chain

24. Current management focus
Mismatch between the two
High
Environmental
Footprint
Natural
Resources
Transportation
Manufacturing
Product
Distribution
Consumers
Low
Supply Chain

25. Where are the opportunities?
Review of the latest guidance

26. Review of the latest guidance
What guidance exists?
What does it say?
How do you use it?

27. Review of the latest guidance
What guidance exists?
Sustainability and Local Government Procurement
November IDeA
Environmental Purchasing in Practice
September 2002 – iema
HEPS Purchasing for Sustainability: Guidance for Higher Education Institutions – Forum for the Future
Procuring the future

28. Review of the latest guidance
What guidance exists?
Develop Ethical Purchasing Practice, 2001 – CIPS
The ethical decisions – An executive guide to corporate social responsibility, 2004 – CIPS
Social issues in purchasing, February 2006 – Office of Government Commerce

29. Review of the latest guidance
What does it say?
Understanding of the environmental and social impacts
Risk based approach
Opportunities throughout the procurement process
Identification of need
Specification
Supplier selection
Evaluating tenders
Contract management and supplier development

30. How do you use it?

31. Identifying need What do we want to buy?
Why do we need this product or service?
Can the need be met another way?
Is a suitable product available elsewhere in the institution?
Can the requirement be met by renting, sharing rather than purchasing?
Is the quantity requested essential?
Is the specification currently used the correct one for the purpose?
Can the product serve a useful purpose after its initial use?

32. Identifying need Challenge repeat purchases!
Important as it can free up thinking to look for more sustainable options
The more ambitious the environmental objective the more fundamental the re-examination needs to be
Good purchasing practice requires fundamental questions are routinely asked about the value being delivered

33. Identifying need Reduce Replace Re-use Recycle and return Re-think
Copyright
Barbara Morton
Increasing
order of
Priority

34. What are the impacts?
In groups identify the environmental impacts and the social considerations related to the goods or service being purchased
Moves IT

35. What are the impacts?
This exercise is an essential part of the process
Can been done as an individual but is better in small groups
Encourage devolved purchasers do this with colleagues / environmental professionals
This can feed into specification, award criteria, tender evaluation, supplier appraisal

36. The specification
Defined as a “statement of needs to be satisfied by the procurement of external resources” Or
What the purchaser wishes to buy and what the supplier is expected to supply

37. The specification
As discussed in ‘Modern Procurement Practice’ 3 types of specification are generally used
Functional – defines function and duty of the product or service
Performance – defines performance (output specification)
Technical – physical characteristics on an item

38. The specification
By placing the emphasis on the functional and performance based specifications this provides an opportunity for the supply market to innovate including reducing environmental and social impact
Also key as this indicates to suppliers that environmental and social considerations are important to the client

39. The specification Fitness for purpose and value for money
Resource, energy and water efficiency
Minimum use of virgin and non-renewable materials
Maximum use of post consumer materials
Non (or reduced) polluting with minimum use of toxic chemicals, CFC’c ozone and other pollutants

40. The specification
Maximum durability, reparability, reusability, recyclability and upgradability
Minimum packaging
Design for disassembly
Fault controls to prevent unnecessary waste
Health and safety standards
Biodegradability

41. The specification Eco-labels
Used by supplier to demonstrate the environmental credentials of goods and services
Widely recognised and on the whole very robust
DEFRA’s Green Claims Code is a good source of advice on misleading labels
Achieving the standard can be costly and time consuming

42. ECO-labels

43. The specification
Under the procurement regulations you can use eco-label criteria to help determine environmental specifications
Can accept eco-labels as proof of compliance – but other proof must also be accepted
You cannot stipulate that products must have an eco-label certificate
ICLEI guide recommends you always add the words ‘or similar requirements’ and attach the criteria of the relevant eco-label

44. Supplier selection Pre-qualification
Vetting potential suppliers of goods and services to ensure they meet the required standard
Environmental Management Systems – if relevant to the subject matter of the contract
A simple starting point is to include environmental and social considerations as part of the process
Policy’s in place / management commitment
H&S record
Environmental incidents

45. Supplier selection Supplier appraisal
Used to assess the suppliers environmental and social impacts
More important for high risk goods or services or on strategically important contracts

46. Supplier selection Using questionnaires They are a familiar tool
Can be cost effective way of gathering information
Can produce a lot of data quickly
Can be used at pre-contract to influence the tendering process or post contract as part of contract management

47. What are the potential pitfalls of questionnaires? Exercise
Supplier selection
What are the potential pitfalls of questionnaires?
Exercise

48. Sphere of Control Sphere of concern Sphere of influence Sphere of

49. Tender evaluation
Opportunity to incorporate your priorities into tender for goods and services
Helps integrate into an essential part of business operations
Need to set out contract award criteria at an early stage
Opportunity to apply weighting to environmental criteria
Award criteria must be linked to the subject matter of the contract

50. Contract management What can you do?
Set target related to your own organisational objectives and relevant to the contract – KPI’s
Encourage innovation around reducing environmental and social impacts
This sends out a clear message to the market that this is on the agenda and will develop further
Use past performance in award of new contracts
Discuss alternative products & services with suppliers

51. Contract management What can you do?
Work with your suppliers to stimulate innovation, a better product and service with reduced impact
Joint improvement targets often include
Reducing packaging weights and volumes
Introducing reusable and returnable packaging
Reducing hazardous material content in products
Examining purchase order quantities and delivery frequency
Improving delivery scheduling to reduce transport impacts

52. Contract management Continuous improvement
Work with suppliers to improve
Set targets and monitor improvement through contract review
Allows organisations to accept issues are apparent but are working to address them
Train your suppliers
Provide guidance
Give awards!!

53. What can we do now?
What do we communicate?

54. Action Planning

55. What can we do now? Communicating sustainable procurement
Who are our audience?
What pressures are they under?
What are their concerns?
What do we want them to do differrently?
How can we help them?

56. What can we do now? Learning styles
Activists: here and now, gregarious, seek challenge and immediate experience, open-minded, bored with implementation
Reflectors: stand back, gather data, ponder and analyse, delay reaching conclusions, listen before speaking, thoughtful
Theorists: think things through in logical steps, assimilate disparate facts into coherent theories, rationally objective, reject subjectivity and flippancy
Pragmatists: seek and try out new ideas, practical, down-to-earth, enjoy problem solving and decision-making quickly, bored with long discussions

57. Jimmy Brannigan jbrannigan@esdconsulting.co.uk
Many thanks
Jimmy Brannigan