Green Procurement

By Bertrand Maltaverne

We, as procurement professionals and as citizens, have a responsibility to take action to tackle the challenge of working sustainably.

01 August 2019: this could be when we reach Earth Overshoot Day this year. For the rest of the year, we will be living on credit. When it comes to natural resources, that is.

"Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity's demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year" (OverShootDay.org).

Developing sustainable procurement policies is an important and worthy goal for any organisation or business. It is not just about buying the eco-friendliest products out there - sustainable procurement means taking the social and economic influences of purchased goods and services into account, along with their environmental footprint.

Through sustainable procurement, your organisation can build resilience and become future-proofed through increased efficiency and effectiveness. Policies will benefit your bottom line and help you to manage supply chain risks, so it is a win for your business as well as for the planet and the people on it.

So, where do you start? And, more importantly, how can policymakers know what sustainable or 'green' procurement even means?

What, exactly, is 'sustainable procurement'? What should purchasers be looking out for and what should product manufacturers do to ensure that their products measure up?

Good Environmental Choice Australia's (GECA's) Emma Berthold weighs in on what sustainable procurement really is and what purchasers should be looking out for.

On the back of heavy electricity load shedding across South Africa in February and March 2019, the potential of solar energy has been widely discussed.

The fact is that Africa receives more hours of bright sunshine than any other continent on Earth.

The Department of Energy reports that South Africa averages more than 2 500 hours of sunshine per year − average solar-radiation levels range between 4.5kWh and 6.5kWh per square metre in a single day.

Interestingly, Ghana receives similar levels of sunshine per year as well as similar levels of solar radiation. Consequently, the country is pushing renewable energy and thus it is a rapidly growing market.

Ghana's ambition is to generate 10% of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020, which would equate to approximately 500MW, enough to power about 100 000 households.

"It is a big task and supply chain management has a role to play in all of this" says Dr Ofori Boateng, CEO, Strategic Power Solutions (SPS).

Join us at Smart Procurement World 2019, where one of our conference themes will be "Walk the talk: High-impact procurement"

Procurement work is much more than just securing the right products, in the right quantity and quality at the right place... Let's think wider, more holistically, writes Robert Freeman, a procurement and supply chain expert at Future Procurement, a procurement coaching and consultancy organisation.

When talking about procurement projects for a municipality it is safe to say you must factor in the political dimension.

Although the importance of council supervision in the municipal procurement process is clear, difficulties arise when the political side of council thinking begins to cloud the discharge of its fiduciary responsibility. Stephen Bauld explores the political dimension that procurement must appreciate, in this month's SmartProcurement.

In preparation for the upcoming G20 summit in China this September, the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau (SEPB) issued an order for an estimated 1 000 factories within a 300-km radius of Shanghai to cut down production.

This measure was enacted to reduce pollution before world leaders arrive for the event. So how will this affect global supply chains?

This year, China hosts its first-ever G20 summit in Hangzhou, a city situated 240 kilometres south-west of Shanghai, where significant industrial, construction and residential emissions affect the air quality of its neighbouring cities.

With only a few days to go, 3000 attendees have confirmed – Smart Procurement World, Africa’s largest supply chain indaba, kicks off on Tuesday, 9 September.

More than 110 speakers will share their procurement and supply chain insights with delegates in 6 different conference streams.

Hear from supply chain heads from Absa, Coca-Cola, Anglo American Platinum, Sasol and Transnet. Technology enablers from SAP and Oracle will inform the technology panel discussion.

By ignoring reverse logistics – the returns and proper disposal of obsolete products – organisations are not only indirectly damaging the environment, but their corporate reputations. Furthermore, most South African companies fail to take advantage of the potential that exists to make millions of Rands from recycling electronic waste (defined as anything that runs on electricity).

“However, companies will only take recycling seriously once they realise they can make ‘green’ from ‘going green’," says Joe Walden, director of the US-based Supply Chain Research Centre.

“Without action, the overall costs of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever…the benefits of strong, early action far outweigh the costs of not acting,” warned British economist Lord Stern of the effects of climate change on the world economy in the 2006 Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.

For most organisations, responding to climate change begins with the supply chain, the core of every organisation’s environmental footprint, TechPro Personnel tells SmartProcurement.