Sustainable Development & Procurement
The UK Government's Sustainable Development Strategy ‘Securing the Future'* sets out the goal of sustainable development as:
"to enable all people throughout the world to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life, without compromising the quality of life of future generations."
The UK public sector spends in excess of £125Bn a year. Government recognises that public procurement has a key role to play in achieving sustainable development, and in enabling public bodies to achieve their sustainability targets. ‘Securing the Future' included the goal that the UK becomes one of the EU leaders in sustainable procurement by 2009.
The Government commissioned the industry-led Sustainable Procurement Task Force (SPTF), chaired by Sir Neville Simms. The taskforce reported in June 2006 with the document ‘Procuring the Future'.*
Central government's response to the SPTF was jointly through Transforming Government Procurement* and the Sustainable Procurement Action Plan (SPAP)*. There are also sustainable procurement strategies for local government* and for the health and social care* sectors.
The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), government's independent sustainability Watchdog, produces the annual Sustainable Development in Government report (SDiG).*
The new Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP)*, based within the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) was established to provide support to departments on how they can meet their sustainability targets. CESP published the Government's delivery plan* in August 08 setting out the next steps for departments, and bringing together a set of milestones and trajectories for the achievement of the SOGE* and SPAP targets. The trajectories and milestones, and the delivery plan itself where necessary, will be revised every six months.
Procurement professionals therefore have a key role to play in enabling their organisations to meet the challenges of sustainability. In Buying Solutions we recognise these challenges. We are committed to helping our customers achieve value for money in sustainable procurement.
*Buying Solutions is neither responsible for the content or reliablity of these external web pages or has no control of their availability.