Sustainable Purchasing Audit & Consultancy Services

Why should our company consider sustainable purchasing? What’s changing?

There are several drivers putting greater pressure on organisations to improve their sustainability and ethical performance, including:

• The need for cost savings to maintain profitability (especially as the cost of oil increases and recession bites);

• pressure from stakeholders (particularly clients but also staff, suppliers and local communities);

• the need to align procurement strategy with core values;

• the need to identify and eliminate/reduce waste, as the cost of disposal increases;

• the opportunity to gain competitive advantage over competitors who are less “green”;

• to opportunity to improve public image and environmental credentials;

• the need to comply with new and forthcoming legislation;

• the need to reduce environmental risk/liability.

What does Green Buying offer that helps us improve in this?

We offer your business our innovative Sustainable Procurement Healthcheck, which involves the following:

Environmental Themes SWOT Analysis

Green Buying understands procurement programs that can deliver true environmental improvement to purchasing decisions. In our experience, these improvements have the greatest chance of success if the whole product or service chain is included in the identification of environmental impacts.

Managing the risk and opportunity of environmental impacts in the supply chain involves us helping you identify and address the performance of materials, components, and goods and services that you buy and use. For example, working co-operatively with suppliers to reduce environmental impact is a key cornerstone in the latest thinking on carbon management and reporting.

Our Green Buying Healthcheck programme will also look wider than just the carbon in your purchasing decisions; through our SWOT we will help you address the following environmental elements:

• Reduce your water use - Water is the single most common ingredient in many products and a critical utility used throughout the supply chain. We will help you identify water efficiency savings.

• Enhance your energy management - Manage your energy use by implementing energy efficiency measures. This would include the design of your goods and services and also look up and down your supply chain.

• Reduced packaging costs – Help you create dialogue with your supply chain partners and improve their potential for improved packaging solutions that reduce environmental impacts and your disposal costs.

• Improved transport logistics – Identifying alternative transport modes, nodes and fuel uses can help you reduce the transport related environmental impact from your goods and services bought in.

• Implementing green procurement policies – Helping you write and communicate your environmental and green procurement policy to staff is a crucial step to successfully implementing any scheme.

• Managing your suppliers - through effective tendering, building partnerships, performance monitoring and supply chain risk assessment.

In addition to these themes, Green Buying will also identify how your senior management views environmental issues material to your activities, as well as considering potential skills gaps.

What are the deliverables of the Healthcheck?

1. SWOT Audit results

We will write up and report back our audit fundings based on the on-site review, highlighting your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to your organisation and its supply chains sustainability performance across the environmental and procurement themes mentioned above.

2. Action Plan

Green Buying will prioritise 3-5 key areas of your procurement practices that can be focused on to deliver environmental improvements. When delivered, this should reduce cost, risk and will enable you to promote a more positive environmental message to your clients, shareholders, staff and suppliers.

3. Benchmarking your Performance

Green Buying will also review examples of your peer sector organisations’ approach to responsible procurement. We would include those peer organisations in the wider sector and those in your sector that we consider to be leaders in environmental supply chain management. A simple benchmarking report would be prepared to help you position your approach i.e. best in class or simply adhering to best practice.

How long does the Healthcheck take?

After gathering a small amount of information from your company pre-audit, we will typically take 5 days to complete the project, including 1 day on-site with 2 of our team (one an environmental expert, the other a procurement expert). Actual project duration will depend on the size and complexity of your business and its supply chain.

Call us now (0845 217 8995) to discuss this service in more detail.

What other services can Green Buying provide?

Green Buying has a range of other sustainable business services which it can offer your business, including:

• A more detailed review of your energy efficiency

• A more detailed review of your waste management

• Advising on green product design using WSP’s “greenfly” toolkit

• Support on developing tenders that encourage greener suppliers/products/services.

• Access to our comprehensive legal compliance register – this compares your existing practices against any risk exposure from environmental procurement related legislation.

Sustainable Purchasing Audit & Consultancy Services

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