This training day is ideal for procurement professionals who need to gain an understanding of the principle of sustainable procurement.

The programme comprises 2 sections. The morning is dedicated to learning more about sustainability and how it applies to supply chain strategy. The afternoon can be spent understanding stakeholder needs and how to set priorities and develop an action plan.

1. The Business Case for Sustainable Procurement
2. Grouping Sustainability Issues for Organisations
3. Exercises:
   1. Supply Chain Headlines - looking at reputational risk
   2. Impacts and Challenges
4. Understanding Stakeholder Needs
5. Setting Priorities

These training sessions will follow the same format of the In-house Sustainable Procurement Training course but additional preparation will allow content and examples to be focused on specific category spend areas.

This evaluation session aims to evaluate the status of sustainable procurement practice using Action Sustainability's audit tool which focuses on the five themes of the Flexible Framework. This has been used with clients from across both Government and the private sector with very positive feedback. This would be a half day session with senior people who have a broad range of knowledge of the organisation. The outcome of this session will be a clear indication of what needs to be done to deliver a holistic sustainable procurement strategy.

So where are you on your sustainability journey? Our one day assessment against the BS8903 strategic framework will enable you understand exactly where you are, what's in-line with the standard and where there is room for further actions. This session would be a facilitated session to develop an action plan based on the outcomes of the evaluation. Attendees will have built their understanding of how to develop a suitable action plan.

We recommend that this half day session follows on from the evaluation workshop detailed above. This session would be a facilitated session to develop an action plan based on the outcomes of the evaluation. Attendees will have built their understanding of how to develop a suitable action plan.

This session would be a facilitated session, for senior people, which aims to build a consensus and clearly define the scope, objectives and goals related to individual sustainability impacts (e.g. waste, climate change, social inclusion etc.) These objectives can then be used to develop a clear set of objectives for procurement managers to interpret into their own categories. This session will highlight how procurement can be used as a tool to deliver against an organisation's sustainability objectives.

This session enables your organisation to pick up on specific high profile purchases and construct a risk analysis of each product. Understanding the distinction between inherent and residual risk, developing mitigation measures, embedded monitors and indicators will be a key element in this half day course. This can be done with frontline staff forming a business improvement team. The duration will depend on the number of products chosen but can be a half day or a full day.

Developing methodology for measuring outcomes in terms of sustainability. E.g. CO2 reduction and waste diverted from landfill. This is recommended only after the items above have been addressed and will enable attendees to understand how best they can put in place metrics to measure the sustainability impacts and improvements as a result of their new strategies.

The principles of good Sustainable Procurement Strategy rely on the engagement of the supply chain to help us evaluate the impact their actions are having on our own sustainability and to enable the Sustainability message to cascade further down the supply chain.

The first step to engage suppliers effectively is the staging of a Key Supplier Symposium. These one day conferences which we have run effectively for both public and private sector organisations bring together key personnel from your 1st tier contractors and explore with them the principles of sustainable procurement, what your organisation is expecting and how they can help to deliver against your sustainability objectives.

The Symposium is an excellent vehicle for engaging first tier suppliers and the starting point to enable further work with your supply chain.

We would advise that the symposium would be attended by your key first tier contractors along with key procurement staff. The event will take the format of an introductory plenary session that will set the key policy drivers in perspective, followed by five breakout workshops that each address your organisation's key impacts in C02, water, waste, fair trade and diversity. Attendees participate in all five workshops before a final plenary session that aims to bring together the five threads and set a clear way forward.

The course aims to raise awareness and understanding of how sustainability considerations can be integrated into the contract management process. This training will provide attendees with the skills, knowledge and web based tools to enable them to assess and benchmark their contractors ' sustainable development policies and actions plans, and to provide relevant advice on how to improve the sustainability impacts of their organisations. The web tool we propose to use was created by Action Sustainability, based on the five strands of the Flexible Framework.

This programme uses case studies from typical construction projects. Delegates work in small groups to understand the unique socio-economic and environmental drivers for each project and develop a sustainable procurement strategy for the project. We can also offer this programme in-house to clients using real examples of current projects.

This course is ideal for heads of procurement for construction projects, procurement teams and quantity surveyors. It is also useful for non-procurement professionals involved in construction such as project managers, designers and environmental managers.

This programme was developed in partnership with the Construction Industry Research Association (CIRIA).