NHS East Midlands Sustainable Procurement Policy

							                           Northamptonshire County Council
                            Sustainable Procurement Policy

1.1 Overall Aim
The council is committed to ensuring the goods and services it purchases:

       are manufactured, delivered, used and disposed of in an environmentally
        and socially responsible manner and
       deliver long term value for money for the Council and the public sector as
        a whole

We will update our corporate objectives to include sustainability and consult with
key stakeholders to develop a Sustainable Development Strategy.

The Sustainable Procurement Policy has been developed to address the
objective to „promote procurement practices and policies which contribute to the
Council's priorities on equality, sustainability and regeneration‟ and is a key
objective of the Procurement Team.

1.2 Key sustainability objectives
Buying more sustainably offers potential whole life cost savings, supports our
commitment to Good Corporate Citizenship, safeguard our reputation as a
responsible public body and protects the health of staff, patients and the public
at large.

The key objectives addressed by this policy are:

         Reducing fossil fuel usage to minimise climate change
         Reducing usage of hazardous materials
         Reducing waste
         Improving public health and quality of life
         Increasing levels of employment, skills and equality in Northamptonshire
         Ensuring fair pay and working conditions throughout our Supply Chain
         Protecting biodiversity
         Complying with current and anticipating future legislation

The council has or is in the process of defining measures relating to each of
these objectives.

In order to achieve this, the Council will aim to:
      Reduce the purchasing of new products by cutting down on waste and
       repairing or reusing existing products.
      Consider value for money in terms of durability, running costs,
       maintenance and disposal costs rather than simply the initial purchase
       price.


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      Specify products which are made of recycled materials; can be recycled or
       reused; can be operated in an energy efficient manner without wasting
       water; and provide the Best Practicable Environmental Option (BPEO) in
       terms of their production, distribution, transportation, use and disposal, so
       long as the requirements of value for money and quality are met.
      Explore the availability of locally produced goods and services that might
       meet the Council's needs.
      Explore the availability of 'Fair Trade' and „Buy Recycled‟ type goods that
       might meet the Council needs.
      Purchase whenever practical, materials and substances which are the
       least harmful to the human health, environment and future generati ons.
      Ban the use (by the Council and its contractors) of certain specified
       environmentally damaging products where the alternative product or
       method is suitable and available.
      Develop detailed guidance for the purchase of products with potentially
       significant environmental impacts by virtue of their nature of the quantity of
       them purchased by the Council
      Include environmental considerations in all contract documentation.
      Continually review purchases and contracts specifications with the
       intention of reducing the environmental impact of direct and indirect
       purchases.
      Include environmental considerations in the assessment of suppliers and
       contractors and their products, and work together with suppliers and
       contractors to improve environmental performance.
      Raise staff awareness about environment sustainability and development
       issues relating to purchasing through the provision of appropriate
       information and training for specifiers and end users.
      Meet relevant statutory requirements and help set the standards for best
       environmental purchasing practice.
      Share experience with others and promote good practice with respect to
          purchasing and sustainable development.

This policy applies to all purchasing activities within the council.

1.3 Sustainable Procurement Scope

Sustainable Procurement
This policy applies to all purchasing activities and s ustainable procurement
should meet normal procurement imperatives (Best Value) but not by:
      Exploiting labour, working conditions and pay.
      Undermining local cultures, values, pr actices and legal requirements.
      Damaging future economic and social prosperity of the individual
       community, country, and future generations.
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      Exhausting or damaging natural resources, wildlife, habitat and bio-
       diversity.
      Polluting air, land and water.


The purpose of this policy is to help minimise impact on the environment by
providing staff with information and practical help to assist them to buy or specify
products that cause the least environmental damage. It sets out Council policy
on environmental purchasing and gives tips and advice on how to find products
that will be effective, of value for money and do least harm to the environment.
If we are to deliver best value services we need to take account of the wider
implications of our purchasing decisions. The purchase price may only be a
fraction of final cost to the council, or wider society, with a variety of impacts
associated with the way goods and services are made, delivered, moved, used
and disposed of. These include running costs, repair and disp osal charges,
along with indirect and hidden costs like traffic congestion and pollution.

1.4 Key Policy Principles

1.4.1 Spend Analysis and Prioritisation
To support its spend analysis and workplanning, we will establish a process to
assess the following criteria at sub-category level:

      Level of spend
      Level of contract renewal activity
      Key suppliers by type and location ( where possible by Multinational,
       National, SME, Social Enterprise / Overseas, UK, Regional, Local)
      Level of risk against each sustainability objective initially against high
       value suppliers

This will be used to prioritise sub-categories for sustainability improvement
activities that will form part of individual category strategies.

1.4.2 Demand Review
Prior to any tender process, Procurement Managers will review the aggregate
requirement to minimise volume, scale, costs and environmental impact.

Procurement Officers will validate with the responsible officers that for any
product purchases:

      there is a genuine operational need for the purchase,
      all cost effective opportunities for products to be shared, upgraded,
       refurbished, leased or delivered as a service have been exploited,
      the product will be used efficiently, minimising waste
      the forecast demand is accurate

1.4.3 Sustainability Review
Prior to any formal tender process, Procurement Officers will review the
purchase against the key sustainability objectives listed above. Where relevant,
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buyers will identify actions to reduce impacts through supplier pre-qualification,
specifications, evaluation criteria, supplier development and continuous
improvement.

This requirement will initially apply to all formal tenders over £75,000 in value.


1.4.4 Whole Life Costing
Where relevant, Procurement Officers will evaluate all tenders on the basis of
long term value for money, using whole life costing to assess:

      purchase, installation, transportation and commissioning costs
      operating costs, including labour, maintenance, re-processing, energy,
       water and consumables usage
      management costs, including staff training, insurance, health and safety
       and environmental costs
      disposal costs
      Opportunity of reducing consumption/usage

This approach should be used for all capital investments, waste contracts and
where comparing consumables against reusable alternatives.
We will review the feasibility of expanding this approach to include costs and
benefits affecting other public bodies and external social and environmental
costs.

1.4.5 Social Enterprise and SME Engagement
To increase the level of opportunities for Social Enterprises and local SMEs, all
requirements over £30,000 in value will be advertised on
www.sourcenorthamptonshire.co.uk unless a specific exemption is agreed.
Where possible contract opportunities below this value will also be advertised via
sourcenorthamptonshire.co.uk.

As part of the sourcing strategy, buyers will consider the potential to:
    use local lotting to break down larger contracts to match SME and Social
      Enterprise capacity where this does not impact oval cost or security of
      supply
    encourage collaboration between local SMEs and Social Enterprises to
      compete for larger contracts,
    encourage larger suppliers to sub-contract to local SMEs and Social
      Enterprises and
    hold supplier briefings to help local suppliers understand how tobid for
      contract opportunities

1.4.6 Mandatory Minimum Standards
We will explore the feasibility of adopting minimum social and environmental
standards for products and services, based on the OGC Environmental Quickwin
Specifications.



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1.4.7 Innovation & Supplier Development
Sustainability is a key aspect of our commitment to innovation.

We aim to prioritise key suppliers with the highest spend and sustainability
impacts for targeted supplier development activities. Thes e will be give senior
management support and focus on continuous improvement and tangible
delivery of sustainability benefits throughout the supply chain.

We will work with these suppliers to explore service-based contracts for
products. This will encourage suppliers to hold responsibility for the through life
management of products, using gain share and incentives to reduce their whole
life costs and environmental impacts.

We aim to encourage suppliers to propose innovations which improve the
sustainability of their tender responses and reflect this in tender evaluation
criteria. Suppliers will recognise the council‟s commitment to sustainability and
strive to offer innovative and cost effective sustainable solutions.


1.4.8 Training and Implementation
We will organise a Sustainable Procurement awareness event aimed at
Managers responsible for sourcing goods and services. All procurement staff
will participate in a day‟s specialist Sustainable Procurement training, including
the use of sustainable procurement toolkits, and will participate in annual
refreshers. All other staff indirectly involved in procurement activity, such as
end-users, will receive sustainability awareness training.

Sustainable Procurement will be incorporated in to the induction, job
descriptions, objectives and recruitment criteria for all relevant staff and the
source planning and contract management processes. The Principle
Procurement Policy and Performance Advisor will be the champion responsible
for granting sustainable procurement.

We will review the feasibility of an incentive scheme to encourage buyers to
improve their sustainable procurement performance.

1.4.9 Communication & Reporting
The Sustainable Procurement Policy will be available via our Intranet Sit e and
also on sourcenorthamptonshire. We also intend to issue as an appendix with
all future tender documents.

This policy is covered in all procurement induction and briefings and included on
the Procurement Intranet site.

We will recognise those suppliers whose products and services offer the
greatest sustainability improvements.

We will report the social, environmental as well as financial benefits achieved
through each tender process.

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Progress towards implementing this policy in full is include d as a measure in the
Procurement Service Plan.

1.5 Policy Development
This policy will be reviewed annually or as required by new legislation, taking
into account best practice nationally, regionally and via buying consortiums such
as CBC. We will also update the policy based on “Procuring the Future”, the UK
National Procurement Action Plan.

1.6 Policy Delivery

Progress towards achieving the commitments in this plan will be measured on a
quarterly basis as part of the Shared Service and Procurement service planning
performance review.




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