Action Sustainability comes to London

ONE of Britain’s favourite grocers will host Action Sustainability’s first annual conference that will consider likely sustainable procurement developments over the coming five years. Sainsbury’s headquarters in central London is the venue for the one-day event on February 10, 2011, where experts from around the world will brief delegates on best practice and provide insights into future sustainability trends.

There will be a session on sustainability in practical terms that procurement teams can readily appreciate, including the application of the new British Standard 8903.

The conference will also consider likely sustainable procurement developments over the coming five years in the construction sector, with senior managers from firms such as Bovis, Morgan Sindall, Skanska, Willmott Dixon and United Utilities.

It will enlist the advice of a further set of experts from organisations such as Defra, Interserve FM, the Olympic Delivery Authority and Value Wales to decide whether the introduction of sustainable procurement into the public sector is fact or fiction following the government’s recent comprehensive spending review.

Experts from Australia, Canada, France and Italy will compare Britain’s position with that of its European neighbours and those in Australasia and North America, asking questions such as: what are the drivers for sustainable procurement elsewhere; who is leading the agenda and why; and how does best practice compare?

Peter Head OBE, chair of global planning at Arup, one of the world’s leaders in sustainable development, will open the afternoon’s proceedings with his vision of future models for a sustainable world. Peter will explain how the structure of public- and private-sector finance and procurement will change to overcome the threat of climate change.

The conference will examine the practicalities of integrating innovation into business in ways that deliver measurable commercial advantages with the help of experts from such household names as Adidas and Marks and Spencer.

It will also examine the role of assurance in sustainable procurement with an expert panel led by Action Sustainability’s Shaun McCarthy, who chairs the Commission for a Sustainable London 2012. The panel will explain best practice in sustainability assurance and attempt to answer the question: how much risk does your supply chain represent to your sustainability objectives?

In a closing session Sainsbury’s will talk about corporate social responsibility and its relevance to the practical application of sustainable supply chain management.

For further details: http://www.sustainableprocurementconference.com/

   Is the BIG SOCIETY an evocation for a cash-strapped 21st century?

IT UPDATES John Major’s 1993 view of Britain as ‘a country of long shadows on cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog-lovers and pools-fillers’. But David Cameron’s conjuring takes account of the fact that this sceptred isle is now broke. He is following in the footsteps of Britain’s last Conservative prime minister in an attempt to persuade a nation grown fat on borrowed cash that it must exercise itself with the business of giving something back. Volunteering is a convenient way to reduce costs, but it has a long and honourable British tradition that has proved capable of delivering exemplary service in groups as diverse as Oxfam, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the Samaritans. Following George Osborne’s comprehensive spending review we now know the government intends to cut £81 billion of spending by 2015 and that more than a quarter of that sum will come from the coffers of local government.

There are substantial savings to be made in the way councils deliver services: three London authorities are talking about combining their back-office administrations. But the depth of government cash cuts means there may still be reductions in front-line services unless cheaper ways can be found to deliver them.

Enter the volunteer: but he is no panacea. He will have his own bee in his bonnet; and his own way of achieving his goal. So the post code lottery, of which we have complained bitterly in the past, will be further enshrined.

Different areas will organise themselves in different ways: localism writ large, so don’t expect to move from one administration to another, even adjacent ones, and find the same services available.

Statutory services like education and public health will be provided by paid staff, either directly employed by the local authority or outsourced to a third-party, and delivered in a similar way across the country. But non-statutory services, such as arts centres, libraries and sports facilities, will vary substantially.

The Big Society presages the rise of the social entrepreneur: a dragon driven by service rather than profit; an innovator who can devise a completely new way to deliver community services that makes full use of modern technology.

In truth, nobody from Mr Cameron to the lowliest volunteer, knows what this initiative will turn up. Can we cut enough red tape to create the necessary space? Will civil servants and local government officers try to strangle new proposals at birth?

How many people will come forward to lend a hand and how flexible will they be? Will any of them have the specific skills needed to manage and motivate volunteers?

Are all initiatives destined to be unqualified successes? You can rest assured we will hear about the ones that are, but will the Cameron crew be as forthcoming about those that aren’t? If not, how will we judge the efficacy of Mr Cameron’s big idea?
Your guess is as good as mine.

For more information on how BtoB are helping the voluntary sector: http://www.btob.co.uk/builttoachieve/

   Pooling talent is good for business

THE WHOLE is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s the principle that makes consortia attractive to smaller firms and increasingly to public bodies like central government, local authorities and NHS trusts as they commission work in these straitened times.

But there are difficulties to be recognised and pitfalls to be avoided, according to Terry Wilson, who leads workshops on the subject for BtoB. A consortium, according to Terry, is a group of firms who come together to deliver a particular piece of work or to develop a long-term commercial relationship, sharing risks as well as benefits.

Such an arrangement gives those involved the ability to pool their skills so they can bid for larger contracts and thus widen the scope of their tendering opportunities.

Terry says: “The two guiding principles must be to know and trust prospective partners, but despite that always to take independent legal advice.”

“Members of a consortium should be clear about its purpose from the outset. For instance, is it to be an agreement between individual firms, or a newly incorporated legal entity? Are members’ existing and future commercial interests fully covered by confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements?”

The lead contractor must be chosen with care if the consortium is to be credible. Among the main considerations, Terry says, are its financial standing; its trading history; and its experience in the sector in which bids are to be made.

A consortium framework is important: each member must understand and accept a statement of principles that defines the measurable benefits as well as the ethics to be observed and the public persona to be adopted.

The framework must also deal with practicalities such as financial commitment; cost management; dispute resolution; insurance; and intellectual property rights.

A consortium will need a formal management structure overseen by a designated team who may be wholly or partly employed by the consortium. The team’s job will be to improve overall efficiency by ensuring reliable delivery of goods or services and, if necessary, joint training initiatives.

It must deliver comprehensive management information to members, while cutting the consortium’s overall costs, wherever possible.

And finally, a consortium must have a members’ exit procedure that specifies things such as the minimum period of notice, any trading restrictions to be observed after membership and indemnification of the consortium for any additional costs incurred.

For more information: http://www.business-business.co.uk/presentations/index.html

   Action Sustainability sets the standard

THE GREEN light you might call it: a guide to help businesses define exactly what they mean by sustainable procurement.

British Standard 8903 is the first government instrument in the world to tackle this complex subject. Cathy Berry from Action Sustainability, its technical author, sees it as a source of sound advice; a first tentative step in the right direction.

She says: “At the moment there are certainly pockets of good practice, but they are few and far between. The standard offers the first real description of what we mean by sustainable procurement; it is the beginning of an attempt to develop a common language on the subject.

“We want to replace the present piecemeal approach with a set of considerations that will eventually become second nature to those responsible for commissioning goods and services.

“We have not been too specific at this stage, but the underlying principles are there and we expect them to evolve into detailed proposals for particular industries, possibly at international rather than national level.”

Shaun McCarthy, director of Action Sustainability, sees parallels between the launch of the new British Standard and other developments in previous decades.

He compares BS8930 with the introduction of health and safety management in the 1970s that made offices and factories much safer places in which to work.

He also compares it with the development of quality management in the 1980s that helped to dispel British industry’s reputation for shoddy goods and allow it to compete successfully on the world stage once again.

Action Sustainability has worked with the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) to develop a series of guidance notes specific to the construction industry based on the new British Standard.

Mr McCarthy says: “I am delighted with CIPS support for the drafting process and its willingness to be first out of the blocks to promote a standard that will revolutionise the way we think about sustainable procurement.

“For the first time, end-users have a benchmark they can quote in specifications; one that can be replicated down the supply chain.

“We have a common standard against which we can train procurement professionals and evaluate the capability of businesses in a supply chain.”

For more information: http://www.actionsustainability.com/BS8903.aspx