Sustainability Considerations for Procurement Tools and Capabilities

Sustainability Considerations for Procurement Tools and Capabilities
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2012-10-27
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0309262593

Federal laws, regulations, and executive orders have imposed requirements for federal agencies to move toward the sustainable acquisition of goods and services, including the incorporation of sustainable purchasing into federal agency decision making. Since the federal government is such a significant player in the market, its move to incorporate sustainable procurement practices could have a profound impact on the types of products being developed for the market as a whole. The General Services Administration (GSA) has played a key role in furthering sustainable procurement practices throughout the federal government. GSA is responsible for formulating and maintaining government-wide policies covering a variety of administrative actions, including those related to procurement and management. GSA has several ongoing activities related to sustainable procurement to assess the feasibility of working with the federal supplier community - vendors and contractors that serve federal agencies to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the supply chain while encouraging sustainable operations among suppliers. GSA has also been actively developing programs to assist federal agencies in making sustainable procurement decisions. As federal agencies cannot directly fund the development of sustainable procurement tools, they are particularly interested in understanding how to foster innovation and provide incentives for collaboration between developers and users of tools for sustainable purchasing throughout the supply chain. The training of procurement professionals is also a priority for these agencies. To assist efforts to build sustainability considerations into the procurement process, the National Research Council appointed a committee to organize a two-day workshop that explored ways to better incorporate sustainability considerations into procurement tools and capabilities across the public and private sectors. The workshop was designed to help participants assess the current landscape of green purchasing tools, identify emerging needs for enhanced or new tools and opportunities to develop them, identify potential barriers to progress, and explore potential solutions. The workshop provided an opportunity for participants to discuss challenges related to sustainable purchasing and to developing new procurement tools. Sustainability Considerations for Procurement Tools and Capabilities reviews the presenters' recommendations and tools currently used in sustainable procurement, such as databases for ecolabels and standards, codes, or regulations and other nontechnological tools such as policies, frameworks, rating systems, and product indexes.

Sustainability Considerations for Procurement Tools and Capabilities

Sustainability Considerations for Procurement Tools and Capabilities
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2012-09-27
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0309262623

Federal laws, regulations, and executive orders have imposed requirements for federal agencies to move toward the sustainable acquisition of goods and services, including the incorporation of sustainable purchasing into federal agency decision making. Since the federal government is such a significant player in the market, its move to incorporate sustainable procurement practices could have a profound impact on the types of products being developed for the market as a whole. The General Services Administration (GSA) has played a key role in furthering sustainable procurement practices throughout the federal government. GSA is responsible for formulating and maintaining government-wide policies covering a variety of administrative actions, including those related to procurement and management. GSA has several ongoing activities related to sustainable procurement to assess the feasibility of working with the federal supplier community - vendors and contractors that serve federal agencies to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the supply chain while encouraging sustainable operations among suppliers. GSA has also been actively developing programs to assist federal agencies in making sustainable procurement decisions. As federal agencies cannot directly fund the development of sustainable procurement tools, they are particularly interested in understanding how to foster innovation and provide incentives for collaboration between developers and users of tools for sustainable purchasing throughout the supply chain. The training of procurement professionals is also a priority for these agencies. To assist efforts to build sustainability considerations into the procurement process, the National Research Council appointed a committee to organize a two-day workshop that explored ways to better incorporate sustainability considerations into procurement tools and capabilities across the public and private sectors. The workshop was designed to help participants assess the current landscape of green purchasing tools, identify emerging needs for enhanced or new tools and opportunities to develop them, identify potential barriers to progress, and explore potential solutions. The workshop provided an opportunity for participants to discuss challenges related to sustainable purchasing and to developing new procurement tools. Sustainability Considerations for Procurement Tools and Capabilities reviews the presenters' recommendations and tools currently used in sustainable procurement, such as databases for ecolabels and standards, codes, or regulations and other nontechnological tools such as policies, frameworks, rating systems, and product indexes.

Discretion in EU Public Procurement Law

Discretion in EU Public Procurement Law
Author: Sanja Bogojevic
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2019-05-30
Genre: Law
ISBN: 150991949X

The EU public procurement regime has recently undergone an overhaul and now allows Member States and their contracting authorities to pursue strategic goals via public procurement, including environmental and social objectives. The extent to which such interests may be accommodated in the procurement process is ultimately determined by the broader legal context in which the EU public procurement regime exists, which raises pressing questions regarding the scope and limits of Member States' discretion. This volume scrutinises these new legal acts – particularly Directive 2014/24/EU – focusing on discretion and engaging with questions central to the public procurement regime against the EU legal backdrop, including internal market law and environment law, as well as law beyond the EU.

Research Anthology on Recent Trends, Tools, and Implications of Computer Programming

Research Anthology on Recent Trends, Tools, and Implications of Computer Programming
Author: Management Association, Information Resources
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 2069
Release: 2020-08-03
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1799830179

Programming has become a significant part of connecting theoretical development and scientific application computation. Computer programs and processes that take into account the goals and needs of the user meet with the greatest success, so it behooves software engineers to consider the human element inherent in every line of code they write. Research Anthology on Recent Trends, Tools, and Implications of Computer Programming is a vital reference source that examines the latest scholarly material on trends, techniques, and uses of various programming applications and examines the benefits and challenges of these computational developments. Highlighting a range of topics such as coding standards, software engineering, and computer systems development, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for programmers, computer scientists, software developers, analysts, security experts, IoT software programmers, computer and software engineers, students, professionals, and researchers.

Strategic Sustainable Procurement

Strategic Sustainable Procurement
Author: Colleen Theron
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2017-09-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351274465

Procurement is playing an increasingly strategic role as a lever for sustainable development and social and environmental responsibility. Greater regulation on sustainable procurement in the public sector, including significant changes to the EU Directive in April 2014, are driving this change.This comprehensive guide to sustainable procurement by practising legal experts Colleen Theron and Malcolm Dowden distils key developments in EU and UK public sustainable procurement legislation, government guidance and policy; provides an introduction to sustainable procurement more broadly; provides case studies and practical examples on contractual aspects of procurement; shows you how to set up a sustainable procurement strategy; and contributes to the development of sustainable procurement policy. There is also increased emphasis on "clean" supply chains in the private sector, as best practice seeks to mesh with public sector requirements and reduce the risk that bids for public contracts might be undermined by adverse environmental impacts or social misconduct along the supply chain.Private sector companies should act now to establish best practice sustainable procurement principles to minimize the risk of litigation; several international standards are embedding the principles of sustainable procurement into their requirements.The book also offers practical examples of what sustainable procurement entails, whether the organization is bidding for public sector contracts, in need of meeting tender requirements, looking to obtain certification for a standard, or is simply seeking to improve its supply chain management and implement best practice.

Sustainable Organic Agriculture for Developing Agribusiness Sector

Sustainable Organic Agriculture for Developing Agribusiness Sector
Author: Nikola Puvača
Publisher: MDPI
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2021-08-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3036512195

Developing sustainable organic agriculture and resilient agribusiness sector is fundamental, keeping in mind the value of the opportunity presented by the growing demand for healthy and safe food globally, with the expectation for the global population to reach 9.8 billion by 2050, and 11 billion by 2100. Lately, the main threats in Europe, and worldwide, are the increasingly dynamic climate change and economic factors related to currency fluctuations. While the current environmental policy provides several mechanisms to support agribusinesses in mitigating organic food for daily increasing human population and stability of the currency, it does not contemplate the relative readiness of individuals and businesses to act correctly. Organic farming is the practice that relies more on using sustainable methods to cultivate crops and produce food animals, avoiding chemicals and dietary synthetic drug inputs that do not belong to the natural ecosystem. Organic agriculture can also contribute to meaningful socioeconomic, ecologically sustainable development, and significantly in the development of the agribusiness sector, especially in developing countries.

Sustainable Procurement in Supply Chain Operations

Sustainable Procurement in Supply Chain Operations
Author: Sachin K. Mangla
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2019-05-31
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0429881282

Sustainable Procurement is an emerging concept in supply chain and operations management. Manufacturing industries have made improvements in moving from cost-based to quality-based, and customer-focused supply chain management strategies. This is becoming an integrated component in the supply chain system, with players becoming aware of the regulations and needs of the customer. It is imperative for production firms to look at the procurement activity as one of the strategic enablers for sustaining the business in the competitive global environment. This book will provide industries with an understanding of the concepts related to sustainable procurement policies and its implementation. Provides decision and theory development models in sustainable procurement supply chains Includes contributions in all three major analytics: descriptive, predictive, and perspectives in the context of sustainable procurement supply chain Discusses new business models with suppliers and opportunities for co-branding Covers how to develop new tools to measure and allocate the gains from sustainable practices among stakeholders Analyses the science of translating data into meaningful and actionable insights

Sustainability in Public Procurement, Corporate Law and Higher Education

Sustainability in Public Procurement, Corporate Law and Higher Education
Author: Lela Melon
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2023-12-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000872505

Contemporary changes in law and policy at the global level to efficiently answer to environmental and social issues correspond to the traditional approach of limiting the regulatory and policy changes to a singular field or discipline: tackling the inherent unsustainability of corporate laws or incentivising the offering of sustainable finance to stimulate the transition towards sustainable practices. This book provides a new viewpoint and approach of simultaneously regulating seemingly non-connected fields in order to provide a fertile ground for a truly organic change towards sustainable outcomes. It addresses diverse questions of sustainable transition of the three specific fields to support sustainable practices in public procurement, private market transaction, and in educating future business leaders and legal experts by incorporating sustainable concerns as the underlying guiding principles of their conduct. It translates scientific findings into a practical format that can be used by diverse stakeholders searching for information and solutions in their respective professional fields. The underlying assumption is that a simultaneous action in the three respective fields of public procurement, corporate law, and higher education brings about more coherent and interconnected results that incentivise further action and changes towards sustainable practices. The book furthers the idea of policy coherence by building upon the findings in the field of public procurement, corporate law, and practice and higher education curricula. By identifying the barriers in the three respective fields for sustainable action and proposing solutions for either eliminating or minimising those barriers at the EU level, the book calls for further changes in the respective fields as well as for considering the spillover effects of these policies on other fields.

OECD Public Governance Reviews Harnessing Public Procurement for the Green Transition Good Practices in OECD Countries

OECD Public Governance Reviews Harnessing Public Procurement for the Green Transition Good Practices in OECD Countries
Author: OECD
Publisher: OECD Publishing
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2024-06-26
Genre:
ISBN: 9264873414

This report presents the results of the 2022 OECD Green Public Procurement (GPP) Survey, to which 38 countries (OECD Member and accession candidate countries) responded. The aim of the survey was to better understand how public procurement, a significant economic lever, is being used to generate environmental benefits. The report is organized around four areas: green public procurement policy and strategic framework, public-private interactions on green public procurement, the monitoring and the evaluation of green public procurement, and building capacity and support for green public procurement. Developments in GPP since the survey was completed in 2022 are included in the country-specific factsheets annexed to the report.

Addressing the Environmental Impact of Government Procurement

Addressing the Environmental Impact of Government Procurement
Author: Great Britain. National Audit Office
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2009
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780102954753

In 2005 the government set a target to be recognised by 2009 as one of the leaders in the EU in sustainable procurement, and this report finds that government has strengthened its drive to purchase more environmentally sustainable goods and services. The NAO reviewed actions taken by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and five of the largest spending departments and finds that some have introduced initiatives which are reducing environmental impact and in some cases also saving money. Government has yet to set quantifiable targets for departments, who instead assess their progress in embedding sustainable procurement practices against the "Flexible Framework" model. According to their self-assessments for 2007-08, 8 out of 22 departments reported that they are only at level one of the Framework (out of five) indicating that they have laid only the foundations of good practice. Of the departments that the NAO examined, only the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (NHS PASA) reported that it is practising sustainable procurement across its business, although the DWP is close to achieving the same level. The government has also set itself mandatory minimum environmental standards for the procurement of goods - "Quick Wins". In 2007-08, 15 out of 21 departments reported that they were compliant with these standards, although six of these 15 did not have systems to measure their compliance. Methods of assessing environmental costs and benefits are complex and hence expensive, and are not being used frequently by departments. The Office of Government Commerce needs to clarify how these evaluation methods should be used.