Social Value & Sustainability

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:

Planning
Specification development
Supplier sourcing
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.

NHS Procurement in Partnership

Our Sustainability and Social Value Mission Statement

Sustainability and Social Value (SSV) has taken an increasingly important role in the way we carry out procurement across the NHS over the last few years and will be a huge part of what we do in the future. The four procurement hubs who make up NHS Procurement in Partnership (NHS PiP): NHS Commercial Solutions, East of England NHS Collaborative Procurement Hub, NHS London Procurement Partnership and NHS North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative, are committed to working together to consider SSV in everything we do. By collaborating on our aims and goals, we can share expertise, reduce duplication and achieve our objectives more efficiently.

We have a dedicated SSV workstream which has set out clear objectives for how we want to support customers, suppliers and others in the industry to achieve and maintain sustainability. We have SSV representatives in every NHS PiP workstream so that it is considered in all decision-making. We have also been working on aligning our SSV communications so that all NHS PiP customers are aware of our aims and objectives.

We are aiming to maximise our impact in the following focus areas:

Sustainability – Working with national/regional teams to deliver a net zero NHS by 2045
Social Value – Levelling up communities
Modern slavery – Tackling Modern Slavery and upholding labour standards

We also want to ensure we continue to develop strong relationships with relevant stakeholders.

To read more about our work and key areas of focus, please see our Workstream Key Objectives.

News and Updates

To find out more about our Sustainability and Social Value initiatives, please visit our News page.

Resources

Find out about the Carbon Footprint of the NHS and what it would like to cut down on to help achieve its target of Net Zero.
Read more about the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which we can all work towards for a brighter future.

Learning and Upskilling

Net Zero and Social Value training - free and available to all NHS staff
NHS England Carbon Reduction Plan training for suppliers
Crown Commercial Service Carbon Reduction Plan creation and training

Initiatives and Policies