North East Catchment Management Authority (CMA) is committed to achieving the objectives of Victoria’s Social Procurement Framework (SPF) that aims to ensure value-for-money considerations are not solely focused on price but encompass opportunities to deliver social and sustainable outcomes that benefit the Victorian community. This includes environmental considerations that is often referred to as sustainable procurement.
This information sheet outlines North East CMA’s Social and Environmental Procurement Objectives, how it is incorporated into the procurement process and how suppliers may demonstrate their social and environmental credentials.
Social Procurement Consideration
Social procurement relates to using the Victorian Government’s purchasing power to generate social benefits, adding value to procurement outcomes and supporting supplier and workforce diversity.
Social benefit from procurement, can be described as the positive impacts on people, places or communities generated through procurement practices.
Social benefits might include:
- promoting more diverse and inclusive workforces
- creating training and employment opportunities
- promoting social inclusion, fair trade and social and service innovation
- encouraging local economic development and growth and the use of social benefit suppliers
- helping people to participate in the community and the economy
- engaging small-to-medium enterprises and social benefit suppliers, providing them with the same opportunities as other businesses.
North East CMA has incorporated into its procurement processes social procurement considerations as outlined in its Social Procurement Strategy.
Social Procurement will be incorporated into the processes of the CMA through:
- Incorporation into the Procurement Strategy.
- Development of Social Procurement KPIs that are reported annually through the annual report.
- In the stages of reviewing the procurement requirements and plan for the approach to market.
- Identification of possible Social Procurement Suppliers as part of the procurement plan.
- Terms and conditions of agreements to include supplier code of conduct provisions.
- A signed Supplier Code of Conduct registration form.
North East CMA has prioritised the three SPF objectives based on its core procurement profile and its regional location as highlighted in the following table:
- Opportunities for Victorian Aboriginal people
- Women’s equality and safety
- Sustainable Victorian social enterprise and Aboriginal business sectors
For more information in relation to the Victorian Government’s Social Procurement Framework please visit https://www.buyingfor.vic.gov.au/social-procurement-victorian-government-approach
Environmental Procurement Consideration
All procurement has some level of impact on the environment that needs to be minimised to ensure sustainable procurement practices.
Sustainable procurement practices may include:
- maximising recyclable/recovered content;
- minimising waste and greenhouse gas emissions;
- conserving energy and water;
- minimising habitat destruction and environmental degradation; and
- providing non-toxic solutions.
The greatest opportunity to influence environmental outcomes is by selecting products and services with the least ongoing environmental impacts, such as use of water, electricity and fuel, waste/disposal management, and impact on human health over the life of the product or service. The lifecycle stages that impact on the environment and should be considered are outlined below.
To reduce the North East CMA’s environmental impact, focus will be on:
- Ensuring works specifications include climate change, circular economy and environmental considerations.
- Sustainable procurement including use of recycled products.
- Managing unnecessary consumption to reduce waste.
- Taking a whole of life approach to assessing the extent of environmental impacts.
- Building environmental considerations into the value for money assessment of a procurement activity.
- where appropriate, engaging with suppliers who are committed to better environmental performance. This may include assessment and preference to suppliers who:
- Have established their base carbon footprint and have reduced the volume of emissions released over time.
- Have goods that are certified to a desired environmental standard i.e. paper products that have no bleach in the manufacturing process and are made from sustainable sources.
- Are certified to ISO 14001.
- Have an Environmental Management System that indicates the extent of their environmental awareness.
- Are involved in voluntary industry initiatives to reduce land fill waste.
- Have not been prosecuted for breaches of EPA legislation.
- Can demonstrate the inclusion of recycled content in their materials.
How Can Suppliers Demonstrate Social and/Or Environmental Credentials
North East CMA will incorporate a minimum of 5% each for Social Procurement and Environmental Procurement when evaluating of Requests for Quotes and Requests for Tenders. For some procurement activities, specific social or environmental requirements will be drafted into the procurement specifications/scope. Suppliers are also asked to incorporate their credentials in these areas through their response to the invitation to supply documents. Suppliers should utilise the above North East CMA objectives when crafting their response and how they align. This includes, where applicable, evidence to support any claims.