Sustainable Procurement is 'a process whereby organisations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only to the organisation, but also to society and the economy, whilst minimising damage to the environment.' CIPS definition of sustainable procurement adopted from the Sustainable Procurement Task Force (SPFT).

Sustainable procurement isn’t just about buying green products. It also includes:

• Planning ahead to manage demand.
• Dealing with supply chain risks and impacts.
• Effective ongoing contract management.

NOE CPC has established a Sustainable and Ethical Procurement Project Group with the objective to consider how we can embed sustainability into our organisational strategy, category strategy, procurement processes, contract management and provide guidance to you - the customers who use our frameworks.

This will give you assurance that the three pillars of sustainability – Economic, Environmental and Social impact, have been considered throughout the stages of:

1. Planning
2. Specification development
3. Supplier sourcing
4. Contract management

Progress so far

NOE CPC is committed to promoting sustainability across our frameworks. We have included a sustainability section within our category strategy and a sustainability risk indicator within our market risk classification template, which is completed at the start of any procurement project.

We have also included a sustainability section in our briefing documents to outline the factors considered and addressed within the scope of the procurement exercise.

A Supplier Code of Conduct has been developed to represent the principles that NOE CPC endorses and expects its partners and suppliers to support and follow, and to ensure that their employees, partners, and subcontractors will do the same.

Next Steps

We will continue to develop example sustainability eligibility and selection criteria questions as well as embedding sustainability into the supplier relationship management (SRM) process.

We will ensure our objectives are in line with the The Greener NHS Programme and the Social Value Model.

You can download a presentation about our Sustainable and Ethical Procurement here.

You can also download our host trust Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust's Carbon Reduction plan here. 

If you would like further information, please contact our Support Desk.