Chairman's Blog - Colin Cram, Former Chief Executive, North West Centre of Excellence & Director, Marc1

'UK public sector procurement amounts to £175Bn a year. The government is aiming to be an exemplar of best practice and a leader in Europe this year. Despite criticisms of progress so far by the National Audit Office, a recent EU study has stated that Britain is amongst the leaders in this field.

There are 3 pillars to sustainable procurement: economic, social and environmental. A key part of the latter is tackling CO2 emissions and climate change. Both central and local government have performance indicators and targets for reducing CO2 emissions. Reductions in waste, water consumption and increases in waste recycling are also key to reducing the use of resources.

There are many sources of information on how to reduce resources used in supply chains, including the Carbon Trust and the Office of Government Commerce web sites. There is plenty of good practice, but insufficient sharing. There are companies that measure supply chain carbon footprints. The acceptance that long global supply chains are cheap and a good thing needs to be challenged and there is no conflict between reducing costs and addressing sustainability. Reducing resources used in supply chains must normally reduce costs.'

Have your say now on issues to emerge from this Public Service Events’ conference:

To what extent could increased collaboration help develop and support implementation of sustainable procurement initiatives?

How is it that people perceive that there is a conflict between purchase price and buying products which require fewer resources in their manufacture and/or delivery?

There is much good practice already in the public sector. What are the biggest obstacles to sharing it and how might these be overcome?