Just think what could be done with £175 billion.

The UK public sector spends this amount every year on procuring goods and services, and gets a lot for its money. It builds schools, hospitals, offices and roads. It buys more electricity than the cities of Birmingham and Liverpool combined. It treats waste, buys food, maintains grounds and facilities, and does much more besides.

But we believe that the public sector can achieve even more value from its spending. If it buys sustainable goods and services wherever possible this will deliver practical benefits for communities and our environment. 

Public sector money can also be an important catalyst for sustainable innovation and market development – a driving force for a sustainable low carbon economy.

Our work

Our work on sustainable procurement and supply chain management focuses on helping our partners to deliver more with their budgets.  We follow the premise that 'sustainable procurement is good procurement'.

We aim to help our partners achieve tangible sustainability benefits whilst ensuring that needs are met and true value for money is delivered. These can include: work for the long-term unemployed; health benefits from more sustainable food; lower air pollution thanks to more environmentally friendly vehicles; less waste sent to land fill; and stimulation of sustainable innovation and market development.

We work with partners in local, regional and national government, and the NHS. We’re also increasingly working with suppliers to the public sector: a perspective from both sides of the buying equation helps us understand the practicalities of implementing approaches to sustainable procurement that work.

Our work has involved:

• developing an award-winning specialised whole life costing tool which allows users to calculate the cost of a product from purchase to disposal taking into account current and future costs of carbon emission; 
• providing research and an evidence base for the UK Sustainable Procurement Task Force;
• running a major programme of support with local government and the NHS in the East Midlands;
• developing a sustainable procurement toolkit that includes a simple prioritisation method, a demand review tool, sustainability review/tender planner, and a whole life costing tool;
• helping organisations meet the requirements of the Sustainable Procurement Task Force’s Flexible Framework;
• helping procurement staff secure real contracts for sustainable goods and services;
• designing and delivering training on sustainable procurement; and
• providing advice on practical approaches to using sustainable procurement to achieve strategic regional goals;
• making recommendations on sustainable procurement within the oil and gas industry, as part of our Engineers of the 21st century programme.

Click here for more details of the types of support we can provide to public sector organisations on sustainable procurement.

News

We’re working with the North West Development Agency to develop a framework for action, including practical assistance and training on sustainable procurement and help for regional SMEs to supply public sector organisations in the North West.

We’ve been working alongside the Carbon Disclosure Project with three Local Authorities to help them implement sustainable procurement, with a particular focus on low-carbon supply chains.  We developed and delivered an interactive programme of training and action planning, enabling organisations to build up their skills together.

We’re researching current and future sustainability issues for three key government supply chains – construction, mobile solutions, and printing services – on behalf of one of our partners, a major public sector buying organisation.

Contact: Anna Warrington