Procurement

The University has now been updated and aligns with the Flexible Framework objectives supported by UK Government.  A 5-year strategy has been agreed with six key risk/opportunity commodity areas: Food; Construction; Paper; Travel; Energy; IT.

Each commodity area has been assigned a lead and plans will be developed to achieve Level 3 of the Flexible Framework within 3 years.  

    Good News Stories

    • University & the Student’s Guild catering outlets have committed to serving 100% fair-trade coffee and tea and to stock other fairtrade products.  The University has been awarded Fair-trade status since 2007.
    • Local fruit and vegetable supplier now stocks Fairtrade bananas at the same price as non-Fairtrade.
    • Biodegradable packaging has been developed with a local sandwich supplier and they are sourcing more of their ingredients locally.
    • A website to provide a monthly newsletter for chefs, promoting local seasonal produce and special offers has been developed with the main fruit and vegetable supplier.
    • Our local meat & poultry suppliers have adopted a Government Scheme for Safe Driving (SAFED), saving 10-20% fuel / transport costs.
    • A recent tender for Self Service Print and Copy has incorporated a Sustainability criteria for bidders to evidence their green credentials and how they can reduce carbon emissions over the life of the contract.
    • Retail Services contract review meetings with key catering suppliers has incorporated Sustainability/environmental awareness as a standard agenda item. As sustainability is discussed at every review meeting, we are able to review each supplier’s achievements with recycling, energy saving/CO2 reduction, etc and provides an opportunity to encourage them to make improvements.  One area that local suppliers have benefited has been from free training  and one to one assessments through a Local Area Agreement with other local public sector organisations eg. ECC, DCC, D&C Police, Environment Agency
    • Specific questions are now being asked in our tender documents for example; Have suppliers been in breach of environmental regulations within the last 5 years? We also request environmental policy/awards and whether an Environmental Management system has been implemented.