Sustainable procurement

PfH is committed to meeting the legal and moral obligations it has to environmental, social and economic sustainability.

The supply chain is an integral facilitator in supporting the Kyoto Protocol and other key legislative and guidance policies aimed at ensuring responsible and sustainable procurement. Therefore PfH has an important role to play in ensuring that it and its Members are procuring sustainable products and services.

PfH is committed to:

• Actively seeking to purchase and use sustainable products

• Only using suppliers whose supply chains do not exploit workers and do not contribute to the destruction of local eco-systems or human rights abuse

• Minimising its impact on the biodiversity of the planet along the supply chain e.g. not using products that reduce rainforests or endanger species in their manufacture

• Expanding its portfolio of environmental products and services

• Reducing paper usage internally and enabling it for Members through, for example, e-billing and email communication

• Showing evidence of recycling products and encouraging forward and backward linkages in the supply chain to behave similarly

• Providing environmental and social awareness in the wider marketplace through its supply community

• Showing investment in training and development of its workers and supply development

Ensuring PfH agreements are sustainable.

PfH has taken a number of steps to ensure that PfH Members will always achieve their sustainability targets by purchasing through PfH Agreements.

PfH has produced a set of sustainable procurement criteria, which are now being used to evaluate current and potential suppliers. The criteria include:

Environment:

• Environmental policy

• Environmental management system accreditation

• Membership of environmental management programmes

• Register of environmental regulations and legislations

• The employment of named officers responsible for environmental management

• Environmental action plan

• Environmental impact of product / service provision

• Transport management

• Waste management

• Energy management

• Sustainability credentials of supply chain

Social and Economic:

• Support for local business

• Impact of procurement policy on local economy

• Work with charities and local institutions

• Recruitment policy

• Investors in people accreditation

• Employee development

• Provision of facilities for people with disabilities

• Health and safety policy

• Equal opportunities policy

The criteria is being used to monitor existing and potential suppliers:

• The criteria form the basis of a questionnaire that will be issued to existing suppliers annually. Results are monitored and suppliers are expected to achieve a specific score, and year-on-year improvements.

• The criteria are used to assess suppliers during the EU compliant tender process for each new agreement. A suitable weighting is assigned to each tender as dictated by the product group.