about sustainable procurement policy and procedure

Purchasing that takes into account the social, cultural, environmental and economic issues in order to establish best value.

Any procurement policy or procedure can integrate sustainability!

• Government has now made best value implicit in all public spending and working.
• UK Government Sustainable Procurement Action Plan.
• Local Government Sustainable Procurement Strategy.
• The Cabinet Office for the 3rd sector is now funding the SROI Measuring Social Value project.
• The requirement to demonstrate sustainability within the use of resources assessment as part of the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA). This requires demonstration of a whole life costing approach.
• This is key within the commissioning of long term strategies for sustainable development, infrastructure, waste management, food production, transport, asset management etc.

Local authorities are charged under the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 to find new ways to support local enterprises to develop their capacity to provide sub-regional economic growth in respect to:

• Local jobs and production within a 30 mile area.
• More local and organic food.
• Green energy within a 50 mile regional radius.
• Provision of local services eg. health, housing, banking, public places.
• Measures to increase mutual aid and community projects.
• Measures to increase community health and well-being.

For many years, the proposed solution for regenerating urban and rural areas has been to attract more money into them, from any means possible.

There is, however, a different approach: regenerating the local economy from within by taking advantage of the resources that a community already possesses.

The local economy looks a lot like a leaky bucket. Money enters the way we pour water into a bucket. But a lot of that water leaks out of the bucket, just as we spend money on external services.

In communities facing economic disadvantage there are two ways to increase the circulation of money: pour more water into the bucket or find ways to 'plug the leaks'.

Plugging the leaks by creating economic linkages in poorer communities between local businesses, labour, and public bodies can build a healthy local economy that can stand on its own long after regeneration funding dries up.