Taken from an article on ProcurementLeaders.com on 4 March 2011 The secret behind sustainable procurement is that for all that it sounds like procurement driving the sustainable agenda, that frequently just isn't the case.
Sustainability was recently identified in the Procurement Intelligence Unit's CPO Strategy Survey 2011 as one of the dominant 'megatrends' that will underpin procurement activity increasingly in years to come. For some that confirms what they've already seen - and yet there's plenty of reason to believe that procurement isn't ready for it.
"It's happening slowly," says Shaun McCarthy, director of non-profit organisation Action Sustainability of the sustainable procurement agenda. "But it's coming and personally I'm more optimistic than a few years ago as it's becoming more and more demonstrable that this is moving forward."
At his organisation's recent forum on the topic of sustainable procurement, there was a palpable air of disagreement between those who saw procurement as the beginning of the procurement agenda and those who saw it as the end - the roadblock.
"Sustainability needs to be part of the DNA of organisations," affirms McCarthy. "Procurement can drive it though, and we're seeing some organisations starting to believe in that."
Telecoms provider BT announced yesterday it was calling on procurement to cut CO2 emissions in its supply chain - an example of a major company using procurement, quite explicitly, to implement a strategy that positions BT as a company that is embracing sustainability.
Here procurement is the tool; effective procurement is relied upon to turn a business initiative into compliance from the supply base.
This comes across clearly in the language of Hugh Jones, managing director of Carbon Trust Advisory Services, whom BT are working with on this initiative, who said: "BT's procurement guidelines go a long way to helping suppliers take ownership of the measurement and reduction of carbon emissions during their 'custody' of BT products and services."
But perhaps this partly explains why procurement is often seen as the gatekeeper, even barrier to greater sustainable practice in the supply base. Procurement is asked, as the owner of relationships with a portion of the supply base, to translate the business' desire to be 'more green' into results from suppliers - a complex and often fraught task.
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