Tag Archives: Sustainable procurement
10 going green tips at work
Going green at work can be a great way to save costs, motivate staff and demonstrate your environmental credentials to your clients and prospective clients. In this article I discuss the top 10 going green tips for the workplace. (image attribution: digitalart)
1. Write an environmental policy
An environmental policy is a statement of intent that sets out your organisations commitment to best practice environmental performance. It also sets the tone for your company’s approach to environmental management. Good environmental policies have been thought out correctly, are relevant to your organisation, demonstrate senior management commitment and have a positive tone of voice.
Green printing tips and advice
In a general office, printing is one of the main environmental impacts associated with day-to-day operations. It is also one of the easiest environmental impacts to tackle that will deliver immediate environmental benefits as well as costs savings. This article provides practical green printing tips and advice. (image attribution: digitalart)
An integrated approach to sustainable procurement
image: Stuart Miles
Procurement is simply the process by which an organisation goes about acquiring goods and services. Unsurprisingly, the emphasis within most procurement departments is on price and quality. Most large businesses go through a five stage procurement process to maximise these benefits. Firstly, a sourcing decision is made by someone in the business. This person contacts the procurement department to initiate a Request for Information (RfI) procedure. The RfI is used as a filter to identify a shortlist of potential suppliers who are then invited to pitch for the contract based on a detailed specification. Proposals are assessed against selection criteria before a purchasing decision is made.
The process is tempered by factors including the level of strategic importance of the purchase, supply and demand constraints and purchasing economies of scale. More recently, other factors such as sustainability have come to feature prominently on the procurement agenda – leading to the term sustainable procurement.
