A recent IEMA report states that in 2016, the buildings sector was responsible for 39% of worldwide energy-related emissions, and that 11% of those emissions came from the construction industry.
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In the UK alone, around 200m tonnes of materials are consumed by construction each year, and 61% of all waste can be related to construction. Whilst across Europe, more than 800m tonnes of construction and demolition waste are generated every year. 

There is therefore enormous scope to implement circular economy principles, leading to significant cost savings.

The Buildings As Materials Banks (BAMB) project was established to “create ways to increase the value of building materials, primarily by designing out waste and creating circular solutions”.

Read in more detail here.

SPL has been delighted to have managed and delivered the above Zero Waste Scotland (https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/) project in conjunction with its sub-contract partners Eunomia (https://www.eunomia.co.uk/), Ditto Sustainability (https://www.dittosustainability.ai/) and Mervyn Jones of Sustainable Global Resources.
 
This project has researched and modelled opportunities for adopting circular approaches to the design, procurement, use and end of life management of ICT, Furniture, Walking Aids, Single Use Devices and Small Electrical Medical Devices in conjunction with NHS Scotland and various suppliers.
 
This continues SPL’s work in circular procurement and supply and has identified many valuable lessons.

One of the fascinating parts of working in the field of sustainable procurement and supply is the variety of issues you are dealing with routinely, such as circular economy, modern slavery, climate change and ethical sourcing, among many others.
 
A challenge of working in this field is the priorities that stakeholders will place on particular issues. This may be as a result of political priorities, senior managers’ perceptions and what is hot in the press.
 
The support of senior stakeholders is of course essential in enabling procurement and supply to contribute to a more sustainable business/organisation/environment/society. However, a, sometimes single minded, focus on a specific issue can result in other, equally important, issues being diluted. Many times, the message may be ‘drop everything and focus on this one issue’. This can be a source of frustration for procurers and suppliers, often operating with limited resources, sometimes faced with a beckoning call for action from stakeholders with potentially conflicting interests.
 
Structured risk and opportunity assessments are essential, these involve senior managers so that scarce resources can be prioritised where necessary. At the same time changes in technology, other innovation, heightened understanding of the specific issues (such as the impact of plastics on the environment and health) and best practice should be part of routine horizon scanning.
 
Many organisations understand this. Many senior stakeholders however need to better understand the pivotal role of procurement and supply in enabling organisational objectives and the structured approach to risk and opportunity assessment that may have been, or needs to be, undertaken.
 
How does this resonate with you and your stakeholders? 

A new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) presents overwhelming evidence that one million species, and growing, are now under threat of extinction. “The health of ecosystems is deteriorating more rapidly than ever before, impacting economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide”.  
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Read more here.

In April Scottish Government published a Procurement Report, giving an overview of public procurement activity in Scotland. The findings in the report is based on information collated from public bodies, including Scottish Government. The report includes how purchasing power is used to achieve sustainable and inclusive economic growth, benefiting businesses, employees, society, places and communities.

Scottish Government have a Scottish Procurement policy note (SPPN) downloadable from the website, detailing how a contracting authority should announce the publication of its annual procurement report, and procurement strategies. Also provided is an annual procurement report template, and instruction on how to complete this.

See the full report here.

SPL are delighted to have worked with Zero Waste Scotland on the ZWS Leadership Programme, supporting Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation and Climate-KIC. Helping University contractors use sustainable business processes including whole life costing and circular economy.
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More information regarding the program can be viewed here. 

SPL Director Barbara Morton joined almost 100 SSN members and associates at the ECCI, Edinburgh to engage in discussions on partnerships and collaborative working as effective tools to scale up action, trigger significant investment and stimulate low carbon growth across Scotland. 

Barbara was particularly pleased to see Professor Andy Gouldson give the keynote presentation, and to be able to catch up with him after so many years.

Other key highlights from the event included:

• Transformation through collaboration is key, to overcome multifaceted, complex, cross cutting challenges, and applying multidimensional solutions through cross exchange and shared learning.
• Partnerships can build capitals and capacities (social, financial, political, intellectual), can resolve policy tensions and can also bring complexity - they require attention and leadership.
• Alignment – sharing capacity and resources, can bring greater buy-in and mainstreaming, to scale up action at pace and deliver significant emission savings.
• Greater accountability, monitoring and feedback should give us an evidence base which enables better, fairer decisions and impact.

​As a result of discussions on the day, SSN have set up thematic Action Groups to drive further strategic exchange and learning among members. The Action Groups will be member derived and member driven, solutions oriented, with clear objectives, limited to a six-month lifespan and review, and guided by the SSN Secretariat. To become involved in the Action Groups, contact Catherine Pearce. 

Presentations from the day are available here.

Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) has reported on the challenges and benefits of building a circular economy, to businesses, communities and to the climate. The report reviews real life cases of barriers to and enablers of progress, as experienced through the ZWS Circular Economy Support Programme, and provides valuable insight to inform future programme planning. 

ZWS’s procurement work to date has focused on upskilling public and private sector procurement professionals, by raising awareness of sustainable alternatives and enabling measures to embed these into procurement practice. 

SPL has worked alongside ZWS to support the development of procurement frameworks and contracts and provide support streams referenced in the report, such as:

• Training: A focus on training procurement professionals from 2014 to 2016 led to more than 700 individuals being trained on the international Marrakech standards for sustainable procurement, and almost 400 people completing an e-learning module co-delivered with the Scottish Government’s Procurement Team.
• Guidance: Development of sector- and product-specific procurement best practice guidance to encourage the procurement of various products on a leased, re-used or remanufactured basis. 
• Mentoring:  One-to-one mentoring from 2014 to 2016 aided the development of Scottish Government procurement tools - life cycle impact mapping, prioritisation, sustainability and flexible framework assessment; this continued into 2017/18. 

The full report can be viewed here:  
https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/sites/default/files/ZWS1378%20CE%20Narrative%20Report%20FINAL.pdf
 

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.

In September, Barbara Morton attended the NHS Scotland Sustainability Conference 2018.  The original programme had to be tweaked a little due to some presenters being held up or prevented from attending by the storm the day before, but it was well attended, and Barabara was particularly impressed by the breakout session led by Sharon Pfleger, Pharmaceutical Public Health Consultant NHSHighland:
 
"Greening the annual £1.6 billion in pharmaceuticals for a sustainable NHS, healthy population and planet." 
 
The presentation stimulated a lively discussion on the threats to human health from the inappropriate disposal of prescribed medication and from antibiotic resistance.