Sustainable procurement

The University spends more than £111million on non-pay items each year of which about £71million can be influenced by sustainable procurement. There is therefore a significant opportunity to reduce our impact on the environment through the products we select and to influence our staff, students and suppliers to improve their sustainability. The University is committed to the principles of sustainable procurement which support its objectives of being a top 10 university.

A definition of sustainable procurement:

How we ensure Sustainability is considered when buying goods and services?

The University has been working towards flexible framework objectives supported by UK Government. These objectives are being embedded within the University through a five-year strategy that has been taken forward within six key risk/opportunity commodity areas:

• Food
• Construction
• paper
• Travel
• Utilities
• IT

Each commodity champion has been engaged to look at ways to improve the sustainability of the goods and services that we purchase. Commodity champions have received awareness training and the University’s main staff induction website incorporates Sustainable Procurement through our procurement website. All Procurement staff were trained as part of a national project, NSPPP (National Sustainable Public Procurement Programme).

Suppliers have been engaged by commodity champions to make them aware of what the University is doing with regards to buying sustainably and their opinions have been sought on where improvements can be made within the supply chain.

A strategy group of the following representatives convenes on a regular basis to update and resolve sustainable procurement issues:

Good news stories

When the university’s sustainable procurement policy was reviewed in 2009/10, it was agreed that the Student’s Guild would adopt its principles.

The University has developed a Sustainable Food Policy:

• All fresh poultry products sourced from the South West.
• Ninty per centof fresh meat products sourced from the South West.
• All milk is sourced from the South West.
• All eggs are sourced from the South West. Free range has been sourced for some catering events, but are not widely used across campus due to increased cost considerations.
• No fish are purchased from the MSC endangered / red list – fish to avoid. MSC accreditation planned for 2012/13.
• The University promotes the use of national purchasing frameworks, and suppor local companies to become listed, enabling the University to purchase from local sources, this also introduce our suppliers to a wider customer base.
• Local companies have been introduced to larger UK companies an example of this is 3663 now stock Luscome drinks and Clipper Tea.
• In house bottled water available to customers instead of buying in plastic bottles.

The self-service print and copy project has improved the recycling of MFD toners by establishing a closed loop system. The awarded company Xerox has provided innovative multi functional devices that are toner less. These devices use wax cartridges instead of traditional toner cartridges. Also the University is now able to set rules to default MFD devices to double sided print and locked printing and provide budget areas specific management information for them to manage their printing and copying in a more sustainable way.

We have influenced our local poultry supplier to install wind turbines and PV tubes that supply power to their premises.

University and the Student’s Guild catering outlets have committed to serving 100 per cent fair-trade coffee and tea and to stock other fairtrade products. The University has had fair-trade status since 2007.

Our local fruit and vegetable supplier now stocks fair-trade bananas at the same price as non-fair-trade. Retail/catering outlets purchase above 50 per cent fair-trade with a long term aim of buying only fair-trade. A website to provide a monthly newsletter for chefs and other customers, promoting local produce and special offers has been developed by this supplier.

Biodegradable packaging was developed with a local sandwich supplier and they are also sourcing more of their ingredients locally.

Local suppliers benefited from free training and one to one assessments through a Local Area Agreement with other local public sector organisations eg Exeter City Council, Devon County Council , Devon and Cornwall Police and Environment Agency.

Our local meat and poultry suppliers have adopted a Government Scheme for Safe Driving (SAFED), saving 10-20 per cent fuel / transport costs.

Retail Services supplier review meetings with key catering suppliers incorporate sustainability/environmental awareness as a standard agenda item. Sustainability is discussed at every review meeting and we review each supplier’s achievements with recycling, energy saving/CO2 reduction, etc and encourage them to improve.

Specific questions are asked in our tender documents for example:

• Have suppliers been in breach of environmental regulations within the last five years?
• What areas can suppliers provide evidence on sustainable approaches which they have implemented and how can these be of a benefit to the University.
• We also request environmental policy/awards and how supplier manage their environmental responsibility’s eg Environmental Management System (EMS) implemented.

Examples of some of the 'quick wins' we have been working on: