Sustainability Impact Analysis - Guidance

Embedding Sustainability into the Procurement Process

The past two years has seen a significant rise in the number of university procurement teams striving to embed sustainability into their processes and practice. Some have been spurred into action following a Procurement Maturity or Capability Assessment, others by legislative changes such as the Modern Slavery Act.

The University of Manchester made the link in 2014, between their institutional priority to be a socially responsible university, and their considerable spending power. Supported by their Finance Director to access some external support from Net Positive Futures, they were able to very quickly make progress on the Flexible Framework.

From the start, the team at the University of Manchester has been keen to share their learning with the wider sector; not to bask in the limelight but simply to use their profile to support their peers. Other collaborators on this project: The University of Cambridge, Imperial College London and University College London have contributed to the content and also worked with Net Positive Futures to ensure the process is replicable.

This free to you resource focusses on the integration of sustainability considerations within the procurement process over 17 areas. It will enable you to consider each commodity within the context of Specification development, KPI development and Contract Management. It is offered to the sector simply to be useful. It is not expected to be a definitive process, you may wish to adapt the method to meet your needs, the University of Oxford have done just that, however we are providing clear guidance to give an understanding of the underlying philosophy and approach which we recommend you read in full prior to doing anything further.