Itaipu stars at EcoProcura 2018

A group of three colleagues from Itaipu Binacional, the Paraguay/Brazil hydropower generating company attended EcoProcura in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 03 to 05 October 2018.  The Itaipu Hydroelectric power plant is the world’s largest in terms of power generation and the organisation has set itself ambitious goals on sustainable development, in line with its mission to “Generate quality electricity with social and environmental responsibility, driving sustainable economic, tourism and technological development in Brazil and Paraguay.”
 
The Itaipu team’s aim was to share information on the organisation’s sustainable procurement activities with attendees from Europe and beyond, as well as exchanging experiences on effective approaches to sustainable procurement.
 
Procurement lead, Luis Morinigo Veiluva made a presentation entitled “Itaipu: generating energy and development” and led discussions at the Market Lounge session on 04 October.  He was supported by the Coordinators of the Sustainable Procurement Programme which has been running since 2012 – Gonzalo Martin Zavala Ruiz from Paraguay and Adriano Hamerschmidt from Brazil (and by Barbara Morton of SPL).  The focus of the session was on how Sustainable Procurement and Supplier Development Programmes are promoting sustainable development and regional integration in Paraguay and Brazil.
Luis described Itaipu’s progress on sustainable procurement, including the development of sustainability criteria in 53 products and services and how the organisation has embedded sustainability considerations throughout its procurement processes.
 
With support from Sustainable Procurement Ltd, Itaipu is now developing Sustainable Procurement Indicators to help measure, monitor and report on its progress towards being leaders in the field.  The organisation has set itself ambitious targets to meet by 2020 and will continue to report progress both to its own board and through external reporting routes such as the Global Reporting Initiative.