I’m writing this during a break in the Low Carbon Best Practice Exchange in Harrogate*. I’ve just facilitated a session on Environmental Strategy and an interesting stat from one of the participants from a local authority is that they now award 10% of their tender scores to sustainability. I reminded the participants that every business is part of someone else’s carbon footprint – if they want to reduce that footprint then they either have to get their suppliers to cut theirs or find new suppliers.
Interestingly most of the emphasis in green procurement is from the procurer’s point of view. But the real question is how to respond and compete on green – how to get the basics right and, importantly how to shine. A small Scottish company, EAE Ltd, was told that they won the green points in one tender (and hence the contract) hands down because everyone else submitted an environmental policy but they put in a picture of their wind turbine. Of course EAE are also a damn good company – green will help a good company, but it won’t save a bad one.
If you are interested in how to respond to green procurement, I’m giving a series of workshops on how to compete on green on 30th Nov and 1st Dec, hosted by Compete North East – check out the details here.
* I’ll post a summary of my learning points from Harrogate later this week.