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This section discusses what processes can be used to ensure that the impacts of procurement are properly considered, and, where possible, reduced. It is split into three parts; the first discusses the identification of the alternatives to the procurement of new products; the second, the nature of goods and services that have less impacts; the third, the actual tools that can be used to buy more sustainably.
The first way of reducing the impact of procurement is to consider if there are alternatives to acquiring the resource. If the product is a consumable item, is there scope for reducing the rate of consumption? If it is machinery or a capital item, is the need to up-date or replace the resource proven? Can a repair or modification or replacement for a part be made instead of acquiring a whole new product? Can something else be adapted or re-used or provide a source of replacement parts? As opposed to conventional thinking, might it be as cheap to use labour to carry out repairs in place of bought in new items? Could staff be trained to use items more skilfully to avoid damage to them? Could staff be trained to repair them? To build this approach into an organisation may require budget holders working closely with procurement specialists.
There are two closely related approaches discussed under this heading – though there is no hard and fast distinction between them. The first is characterised by the emphasis on redesigning processes and substituting new ways of undertaking tasks and is described under the heading “Ensuring high material and energy productivity in use”. The second is characterised by choosing materials that are of a nature or produced by a process that has less damaging impacts than equivalent products; this is described under the heading Sourcing materials with less impacts.
This approach involves reviewing the product or service being used or acquired to see if the specification or design can be changed to strip out the use of material and energy. This approach may be termed getting higher material and energy productivity (which contrasts with the sense in which productivity is normally used- getting greater labour productivity).
To achieve this may involve very simple substitutions; for example putting this guidebook on the web instead of publishing it in paper form, video-conferencing instead of travelling to a meeting or conference; using a train instead of a plane, sending an e-mail instead of a letter, or walking instead of using a car.
Big savings may be made by re-designing systems and capital products – for example the design of the hypercar involves a fundamental re-design of automobiles. Similarly, a manufacturer can take a radical approach to the design of its product and its whole manufacturing process. Products now in every day use which have involved these changes include long life bulbs, printers, copiers, and refrigerators. This approach was popularised by the book Factor Four and there is now at least one website dedicated to the concept. In September 2003, the UK Government published a framework for sustainable consumption and production which considers how economic growth can be de-coupled from consumption (see details). A related approach which is being pioneered by the Green Alliance seeks to encourage a number of business sectors to achieve resource productivity by providing services rather than products- (see details).
Sometimes there will be greater up-front costs incurred in designing and acquiring products or services designed to minimise materials and energy use, but significant savings can be achieved in the longer term. This is where a life-cycle approach will be helpful.
This approach does not seek to use fewer materials (or less energy) but rather seeks to use goods which compared with others achieving the same purposes, have less adverse impacts. This lower impact may arise because the products:
To achieve this outcome may require a redesign of the product; or, in particular, a change in the specification.
There are numerous examples of ways in which this approach can be applied. They might include (under different circumstances) using wood or crop plant fibres rather than plastics; using wood (or pulp) from forests that are not old-growth forests, using food from sustainably managed farms (eg see details of LEAF farms). Sourcing locally (other things being equal) may involve lower use of transport (but this is not necessarily the case). Using recycled materials- eg paper, will usually mean the use of fewer new resources and consequently the use of less energy – but this is by no means always the case.
Comprehensive information is available on various web sites about the impacts of different kinds of products and standards that should be aimed for. Some of the most useful sites are:
The UK government’s sustainable development web site. (follow link to “Best practice in procurement areas”) http://www.ukepic.co.uk/productinformationbase.aspx
The Office of Government Commerce has produced a downloadable list of environmentally friendly products that are available from their catalogues. Go to here for more information.
The United State’s Environmental Protection Agency Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines programme helps government agencies "close the loop" by buying recycled products. It produces fact sheets giving recommendations on the proportion of recyclable material that should be found in a range of products classified into: construction, landscaping, paper, office products, park and recreation, transportation and vehicles. See fact sheets on the web.
Labelling schemes (see below) are used to demonstrate the extent to which products and services have lower than normal environmental and social impacts and accessing the product headings on the websites of schemes will provide a great deal of information on impacts of individual product categories and purchasing criteria that can be used to reduce impacts.
A great deal of attention is paid to sourcing that seeks to reduce environmental impacts; considerably less to the human dimension. Generally, if sourcing from within developed countries there is less need to consider human resource issues because of the tendency of national legislation to require at least the meeting of baseline international standards (such as the of those of the International Labour Organisation; see http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/multi/tridecl/decl.htm).
However, if procuring from low wage economies a wide range of adverse situations may arise; for example, dangerous and unhealthy working environments and practices, wages set below minimum subsistence levels, the use of child labour, lack of essential training, working excessive hours, presence of extreme discriminatory policies. In seeking to purchase sustainably, organisations will need to be confident that their suppliers have safeguards in place to minimise adverse impacts to those who work for them.
There are a number of processes that businesses can put in place to reduce the impact of their procurement. Those that are discussed below are:
These two closely related approaches, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Whole life costing (WLC), can make significant contributions to the introduction of sustainable procurement. LCA considers all environmental impacts of a product that are incurred from design to disposal; WLC is usually concerned only with financial costs – and particularly the financial costs incurred by the purchaser.
“A life cycle approach enables product designers, service providers, government agents and individuals to make choices for the longer term taking account of all aspects of the environment. Life cycle approaches avoid shifting problems from one life cycle stage to another, from one geographic area to another and from one environmental medium (for example air quality) to another (for example water or land).” [Source http://www.uneptie.org/pc/sustain/lcinitiative/training.htm ]
LCA is the basis of the award of Eco-labels to products and for this “criteria are determined on the basis of life cycle assessment (LCA) of the product group, identifying when the most harmful impacts to the environment occur, from the extraction of raw materials through to product use and disposal. Areas of impact accounted for are: use of natural resources and energy, emissions to air, water and soil, production processes, disposal of waste, recycling and re-use, noise pollution and effects on ecosystems”. [http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/ecolabel/index.htm]
A complete life cycle assessment is a time consuming and difficult process and hence it is only worth undertaking by individual purchasers when making decisions about investing in large capital projects- or by the procurement sections of very large organisations [for example the Environment Agency www.environment-agency.gov.uk] . More usually, purchasers will make use of the LCAs undertaken by others – through using labelling schemes or guidance on purchasing produced by governments or certification authorities.
Whole-life costing analyses the costs to the purchaser that are associated with each part of a product or service's life cycle from determining the need for it, through to its eventual disposal and replacement. So the distinction between this and LCA is that WLC is concerned with financial costs only and with the impact only on the purchaser.
At the heart of this approach is the realisation that the acquisition, use and disposal of products have hidden costs which are revealed only when a fuller financial analysis is undertaken. The advantage from a sustainable purchasing perspective is that when this comparison of full costs is made, the cheaper solution, (eg one that uses less energy) may also be the one that has less impact on the environment.
The price of a product or service tends to be the most obvious cost to the purchaser, but this is supplemented by other costs, including operational, maintenance, disposal and retirement costs. The range of costs that may need to be taken into account include the delivery of goods, the distribution of products, the associated transport costs of disposal, the costs of disposal, packaging and the disposal of packaging, installation costs and consumables used in installation, etc. Using this approach, purchasers should consider not just the acquisition costs of new capital, but also staff costs, training, training aids, support equipment, operating costs, maintenance costs, and withdrawal from service and disposal costs.
See further details of these ideas.
This term is used to describe a certification scheme that is applied to products (and by some schemes, services) demonstrating that they meet environmental (or by some schemes, social) criteria. These criteria may refer to the way in which the product has been sourced or manufactured or demonstrate that the product will perform in ways that will have less impact on the environment or society. Most eco-labels apply only to environmental aspects of products.
Labels are a valuable tool for sustainable procurers, because they save time in sourcing goods (and services) that meet environmental (and social) specifications - but it is important that purchasers are aware of the criteria being used and the credibility of the scheme. Credibility will relate particularly to the rigour and independence of the certification process applied before a label is awarded.
There are very wide range of labels now being used and this guidebook can do no more than provide an overview of the different kinds of labels and indicate the issues which procurers should examine in adopting labels. Procurers should also be aware that the inclusion of specific labels in specification documents is not allowed by the EU for public purchasing; instead one can seek for equivalences
Labels may be described in a number of ways; the range of features dealt with (for example manufacturing processes, energy consumption in use etc); the range of products dealt with (for example a wide range or forestry, electrical goods, etc) and the source of the certifying authority (ie. governmental, independent, or industry owned). A list of some well-known labelling schemes is available here.
Seeking an overall commitment to a sustainable development policy; either through evidence submitted at the time of tendering or through a pre-tendering qualification process is a very cost effective way of determining the approach of a supplier to sustainable procurement issues. Evidence of the policy itself or the procedures could be sought. Policies could be tested against examples of approaches of Forum for the Future or the Ethical Trading Initiative. Information could also be acquired on whether the supplier has gained ISO 14001 recognition; though it should be realised that the supplier standard may be applied only to the processes of a particular plant, and not to the whole production process of the product.
Checking if a supplier reports regularly on its social and environmental performance will also be helpful. And information from any publicly available reporting processes can be used to check on a supplier’s credentials. Information on these processes is given here.
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