november 2009 eg magazine
TRANSCRIPT
Procura+ seminar
SMART SPP toolkit Putting sustainable procurement into practice
Volume 15 Issue 4
November 2009
Volume 15
Issue 4
Promoting local sustainable development
Published by Global to Local Foundation
ISSN 2042-1990
eg magazine
Special Procurement Issue
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Annual subscription to eg: £70 + VAT - includes access to the PDFs of this magazine plus the eg database of information. To subscribe click here. For a FREE one month trial: [email protected] Global to Local Foundation Ltd 8 Black Croft, Clayton le Woods Lancs PR6 7US
eg magazine
Anne Finnane
Editor
The International Energy Agency expects the world's carbon
emissions to drop 3% in 2009, thanks to the recession.
Until this year, emissions worldwide have been increasing
about 3% annually. If emissions drop this year, it would the
first time in 40 years that they've gone down, rather than
up.
Economic recovery will, of course, reverse the trend. So the
reduction of carbon emissions must remain at the top of the
agenda.
In this issue, we look at how sustainable procurement in the
public sector can, not only reduce emissions, but also drive
demand for sustainable products and encourage the growth
of green business.
Delivering sustainable procurement during a squeeze on
public spending is challenging. But the benefits are real.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Promoting local sustainable development
Published by Global to Local Foundation
In this issue
Procura + seminar report
SMART SPP toolkit
Copying machines in Lombardia
Voltage reduction technology
Organic cotton police shirts for Zurich
Delivering value for London
Putting sustainable
procurement into practice
Green public procurement in
the UK
New technologies
News
hyperlinks to articles
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
How to walk the talk and implement sustainable procurement in European public authorities. This year’s Procura+ Seminar, jointly organised by the City of Zürich and ICLEI's European Secretariat, stood in the tradition of exchange of best practice on how to walk the talk and implement sustainable procurement in European public authorities.
65 participants from 15 countries enjoyed one and a half days of:
- showcasing the latest tools e.g. on life-cycle costing and CO2 assessment;
- learning from success stories on integrating socially-responsible procurement and
- acting to tackle climate change in a time of financial crisis. Participants engaged in an interactive format with roundtable discussions and training elements.
The time is right for sustainable procurement
In speaking about the EU’s Agenda for sustainable procurement at the event in Zürich, Heide Rühle, Member of the European Parliament, stressed the importance of the public sector taking action. “The European procurement guidelines clearly allow for the consideration of ecological and social standards in the tendering process of public contracts as long as the rules of the internal market are abided by”, emphasised Rühle. Leading on the European Topten Initiative, Eric Bush underlined that good ideas should not stop at national borders. The Topten online search tool, originally developed in Switzerland, is available for use in 17 countries and also assists public purchasers in their sustainability actions (www.ecotopten.org).
Tackling climate change through sustainable procurement
A review of the Procura+ Seminar 2009 by Philipp Tepper, Procura+ Campaign Manager, ICLEI European Secretariat
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
The concept of sustainable procurement is based on an integrative approach taking into account economic, ecological and social considerations.
The inclusion of social criteria remains a key challenge:
- the purchase of products, works and services that have a positive social impact e.g. by supporting supplier diversity (social economy, equal opportunities, SMEs, long-term unemployed) and
- ethical supply chains (ILO core conventions: e.g. working hours, excluding child labour)
Ric Hettinga from the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment showed how this works in practice, using the contract performance clauses intelligently. The Ministry developed a model referring to the ILO core conventions and verifying the compliance with evidence of membership in a multi-stakeholder initiative or by type 1 labels. Where there is none available (e.g. in the field of electronic devices), bidders are obliged to publish a public report showing its best efforts. This system has been developed in consultation with watchdog organisations in the Netherlands. The Ministry supports public procurers with ready criteria sets and training seminars.
In the light of the world-wide financial crisis Guðmundur B. Friðriksson from the City of Reykjavik highlighted the cost effectiveness of green public procurement.
Having been hit hard by the financial crisis, Reykjavik had to cope with severe cuts in budget. An assessment of products and services that are currently purchased by the city revealed the huge saving potential of buying 100% recycled paper, reorganising and downsizing the vehicle fleet and using non-toxic cleaning products.
In just six months and by using the Procura+ Criteria, the City of Reykjavik demonstrated how sustainable procurement should be a must, not only in time of financial crisis.
The inclusion of social criteria remains a key challenge
The cost effectiveness of green public procurement
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
A forum for experts and practitioners The event built on the conclusions of the EcoProcura 2009 conference, held in Reykjavik March 2009 (www.iclei.org/ecoprocura2009). The Procura+ Seminar focused on the following key conclusions from the conference in Reykjavik, and how these can be taken further:
• Harmonisation of sustainability criteria, including energy efficiency standards
• Embedding life-cycle costing and assessing CO2 emissions in procurement processes • Learning about the market availability of highly energy efficient products • Promoting low-emission new buildings and renovation
Join the movement!
“If cities leveraged their spending power and purchased environmentally friendly goods and services, this would make a significant contribution to climate-friendly markets”, explains Mark Hidson, Director for Sustainable Procurement at ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. ICLEI, a world-wide network of cities and communities which advocate and are committed to sustainable development, also leads the international Sustainable Procurement Campaign, Procura+.
The Campaign supports public authorities in making their purchasing practices more sustainable and aims to mainstream this practice across the public sector. The City of Zürich is a member of the Campaign and has been a member of ICLEI since 1993.
Any public or semi-public authority can join the Procura+ Campaign and benefit from expert advice and tools on how to implement procurement as well as representation and lobbying at the European and international level. To do so you will need to complete and send the Application Form available online at http://www.procuraplus.org/index.php?id=4585. If you need further information, please contact ICLEI at tel. +49 761 368 92-0 and [email protected] or our UK national partner Global to Local at [email protected].
All presentations from the Procura+ Seminar and Participants Meeting are available online at http://www.procuraplus.org/index.php?id=7510.
The Procura+ series of seminars, formerly known as the “Buy it Green”- Network (BIG-Net) seminars, provide an opportunity for face-to-face exchange amongst purchasers from all levels of governments, suppliers and manufacturers, policy-makers and multipliers on specific topics related to sustainable procurement.
In addition to the Seminar, the annual meeting of the Procura+ Campaign participants was held on the second day Seminar (23 October). The meeting served to update participants on the latest Campaign news, and discuss future initiatives.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Two of the major outcomes of the SMART SPP project will be
• a guide for public authorities on driving innovation through public procurement, focusing on greater engagement with the market before tendering, and
• a tool for calculating LCC and CO2 emissions through procurement.
SMART SPP – innovation through sustainable procurement - is a European project which will promote the introduction of new, innovative low carbon emission technologies and integrated solutions onto the European market.
This will be done by encouraging early market engagement between public authority procurers and suppliers and developers of new innovative products and services in the pre-procurement phase of public tenders.
SMART SPP EXCEL TOOL
• for calculation of Life Cycle Costs (LCC) and CO2
• and emissions of different products and services
The Life-cycle costing/carbon footprinting tool is a software application which can inform the difficult process of purchasing new smart technologies which aim to reduce energy consumption. It can be applied equally to natural heating and cooling systems, low energy lighting (e.g. LED), electric vehicles or solid state computer hardware, as well as potentially to any other form of sustainable product.
Climate-friendly procurement to drive innovation – new guidance from the SMART SPP project
SMART SPP – innovation through sustainable procurement
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Emerging technologies suitable for SMART SPP:
• Small vehicles (high efficient, electric, hybrid)
• Lighting (O)LEDS, solar, light tubes
• ICT (Solid State Computers, thin client)
• RES heating and cooling systems, district
• heating, vacuum insulated panels, small CHP
PURPOSE OF THE TOOL
• Can be applied for most products and services relevant in public tendering
• Supports procurement decision-making, e.g. by tender evaluation
• Can also be used for assessment of current solutions and for monitoring purposes
• Enables public communication of reduced cost and emissions
TOOL ITEMS LCC - Costs that a product will cause during its useful life:
• Acquisition
• Operational costs
• Maintenance costs
• Taxes
• Disposal cost / resale value
CO2 emissions:
• Embedded emissions
• Direct emissions in different use modes (Different fuels)
Tenders evaluation Electric car at charging station • LED stoplight • LED transparent roof light • RES building • Notebook (Solid State Technology). All photos: www.flickr.com except middle Osram Opto Semiconductors
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
The SMART SPP TOOL provides:
• Freedom of choice
• LCC and/or CO2
• Detail level
• Any occurring procurement scenario
• Colour coded excel sheets
• Central data input sheet
• Explanations, comments and help sections
To find out more or to remain informed about the project's developments, please contact the SMART SPP project co-ordinator, Philipp Tepper on [email protected] or [email protected]
Power Points presentations from the Procura+ seminar: http://www.procuraplus.org/fileadmin/template/projects/procuraplus/New_website/Seminar_2009_Zurich/22.10_Presentations/Estevan.pdf
http://www.procuraplus.org/fileadmin/template/projects/procuraplus/New_website/Seminar_2009_Zurich/23.10_presentations/Tepper_innovation_workshop.pdf
The Excel Sheets:
Introduction: Provides basic information
General: Main worksheet for entering data
LCC Diagrams: Provides result diagrams on LCC
CO2 Diagrams: Provides result diagrams on CO2 emissions
Tender evaluation: Allows for ranking of different product options
Conversion factors: Provides conversion factors for different units
Glossary: A glossary of terms used in the tool
Emission Factors: Example lists for emission factors (can also be adapted).
Annual investments: Input worksheet for leasing or reinvestments
Operation: Calculation of cost and emissions in the use phase
Maintenance: Allows for specification of maintenance cost
CO2: Allows for specification of embedded emissions
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Public authorities may participate in the implementation phase of the pilot at their own cost – participating in the pilot involves implementing the standard process for early market engagement, driving the adoption of the innovations developed through the project and ultimately incorporating its recommendations in at least one tender.
Benefits of participating include:
• The opportunity to purchase emerging technologies that deliver improvements in performance over existing technologies, and
• Access to assistance and advice on using a tailor-made pre-procurement process to increase efficiency in current procurement practices.
SMART SPP website - find information on innovation and pre-procurement, access the outcomes of SMART SPP and other useful resources, subscribe to the SMART SPP update and find out how to get involved in SMART SPP.
Consortium partners
• ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability
• Association Ecoinstitut for Applied Ecology
• Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation
• German Federal Association of eco-Counselling
• Oeko-Institut e.V. - Institute for Applied Ecology
• National Institute of Engineering, Technology and Innovation P.I.
• _Local Energy Agency Cascais
• _Municipality of Kolding
• _Barcelona City Council
• _Global to Local Ltd
• _The London Borough of Bromley
The project is supported by Intelligent Energy Europe programme and is an initiative of the Procura+ Campaign
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
ICLEI is opening a bidding process for the 8th EcoProcura Conference. Cities in Europe, preferably ICLEI members, are invited to express their interest in hosting and funding this unique event which is tentatively planned for 2011.
The conference which usually lasts for a maximum of 3 days leaves open the possibility for pre-events and side-events. It can be combined with a Sustainable Product Exhibition/Trade Fair or Business Forum and linked to other national initiatives related to sustainable procurement.
The 8th EcoProcura Conference builds on the success of a series of EcoProcura Conferences held in Hannover 1998, Bilbao 1999, Lyon 2000, Brussels 2001, Göteborg 2003, Barcelona 2006, and inReykjavik 2009.
The conferences showcase successful examples from European and international cities. They enable 250-350 participants from over 40 countries to interact and share their vision, knowledge and analyse the latest solutions on sustainable procurement. This includes purchasers from local governments, regional and national governments and other national and European public institutions as well as producers, suppliers and product developers.
Timeline for the Bidding Procedure
15 September 2009 - Availability of bidding package for those who have indicated interest
15 January 2010 - Deadline for submission of bids
15 February 2010 - Decision March 2010 - Contract finalisation
April 2010 - Start of conference preparations
More information: http://www.ecoprocura.eu/fileadmin/template/events/ecoprocura2009/files/EcoProcura_2011_Call_for_Interest.pdf
Hosting the 8th EcoProcura Conference 2011
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Case study of the framework contract for copying machines in the Lombardy Region, Italy
Laura Carpineti, of the Regional Procurement Agency describes how they have adopted a
formula for assigning weight to green criteria.
Quality is a crucial component of a contract, especially when it is focused on green aspects.
For this reason, when the goal to be reached by a public buyer is to design a procurement strategy for goods or services aimed at selecting the best supplier in terms of a green offer, multidimensional decisions, in terms of minimal requirements and non-price attributes, have to be taken into account.
This article is organized as follows:
Section 1 provides a useful tool to clearly identify the weight to be assigned to green criteria when the most economically advantageous tender is adopted.
Section 2 provides an example, adopted by the regional procurement agency of Lombardy region, in defining an innovative service to be requested by participants as a minimal requirement into the tendering documentation aimed at rationalising the needs of public entities.
SECTION 1
Directive 2004/18/EC gives to the procuring entity the option of awarding the contract on the basis of the “lowest price” instead of the “most economically advantageous tender” (MEAT). This second one guarantees the opportunity of managing the trade-off between price and quality. However, it is not clear how to properly handle the trade off.
In fact, green products and services are usually more expensive than standard ones. In addition, under some circumstances, the procuring agency is willing to pay more for green products/services.
For this reason, the Regional Procurement Agency of Lombardy Region (www.centraleacquisti.regione.lombardia.it) adopted a mathematical approach that clearly assigns a “monetary value” to the technical points and which really reflects the extra-costs to be paid for quality and/or the real preferences of the procuring entity.
Sustainably innovative office solutions
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Here the methodology:
1) First of all it is crucial to define a “linear” scoring rule, that ranks the monetary offers on a “independent” basis. In other words, independent scoring rules are those which assign monetary points to competitors only on the basis of their single offer. In contrast, “dependent” scoring rules are those in which the result achieved by each participant to a tendering procedure is influenced by the offers of the other competitors. Here is an example of dependent scoring:
)""Pr
Pr.(_int_._int_iiceiceMinxsponTotalsPoEconomical =
in which the Price “i” is the price offered by each competitor, while the Min.Price is the lowest price across all the offers submitted by the participants. For instance, let us assume that the procuring entity designs a total score of 100 points, shared in: maximum of 60 economical points and maximum 40 technical points. Let us also assume that 2 competitors submit an offer: competitor no.1 offers 500 €, while competitor no. 2 offers 600 €. In this case, the score assigned to competitor no. 2 depends on the offer of competitor no. 1, which results the best price offered. Indeed: Economical points assigned to competitor no. 2 = 60 x (500€ / 600€) = 50 Economical Points; economical points assigned to competitor no. 1= 60 x (500€ / 500€)= 60 Economical Points.
In contrast, here is an example of an independent scoring rule:
Indeed, assuming that the procuring agency publish in the tendering documentation the reserve price – which is the maximum amount she is willing to pay for that good/service – the formula clearly assigns to each offer submitted a number of economical points that do not depend on the price offered by other participants. Coming back to the previous example, let us assume that the reserve price fixed by the procuring entity is equal to 200€. In this case, according to the independent scoring rule, economical points assigned to competitor no. 2= 60 x (1500€ - 600€ / 1500€) = 36 Economical Points; economical points assigned to competitor no. 1= 60 x (1500€ - 500€ / 1500€) = 40 Economical Points.
)Pr_Re
""PrPr_Re(_int_._int_iceserve
iiceiceservexsponTotalsPoEconomical −=
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
This formula can be graphically represented as follows:
If the price offered by the competitor is equal to “0 €” (Pi=0 €) (maximum discount admitted), he gets: 60 x (200€ - 0€ / 200€) = 60 economical points.
If the price offered by the competitor is equal to the reserve price (minimum discount admitted) he gets:
60 x (200€ - 200€ / 200€) = 0 economical points.
The segment identified represents the set of economical points that could be assigned to each single offer lower than the reserve price and higher than zero.
2) Secondly, it is crucial to define the “economical value of technical points”. This value represents the amount of money that the public buyer is willing to pay for quality. In other words it reflects the price discount that the buyer requires in order to award an extra economical point. In our example, how much does it cost the supplier to achieve an economical point? Here is the formula: reserve price/no. of economical points. In the previous example the monetary value of an economical point is equal to: 1500 €/60= 25 €. Indeed, the supplier willing to achieve an extra economical point must reduce his offer by 25€. 3) “Trade off-price quality”. Consequently, it also means that the supplier, instead of offering discount, in order to achieve the same result, can alternatively offer higher quality, the weight of which is defined in the remaining technical points. Let us assume that the public buyer decides to assign 1 technical point of the 40 points left, to a product which has the eco-label certificate. It means that offering this green product guarantees to participants the opportunity to be equally compared with suppliers that do not have eco-labels and that, in order to be achieve the same total score, must offer at least a discount of 25 € in order to award the contract. It also
60
EuroReserve PricePi =Po = 0
36
Euro1.500 €500 €Po = 0
40
600 €
60
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
means that 25 € represents the monetary equivalent that the procuring entity is willing to renounce in order to get a green product/service. Indeed the procuring entity, by modifying the number of economical points and/or the reserve price, can independently change the economical value of a technical point and then communicate to the market her preferences in terms of quality.
Section 2
It is common practice across local authorities to fix the future needs by simply looking at their “as is” needs. For instance, if a public buyer has to buy new copying machines, he simply analyzes the current number of devices currently in use into the building to be substituted. Since this approach risks being inefficient, the Regional Procurement Agency of Lombardy Region, published in 2007 a new tendering procedure for the awarding of a framework contract for copying machines - addressed to more than 1.600 potential local authorities. This obliged the winning supplier to provide, without any additional cost for the local authorities, an innovative consultancy service, aimed at rationalizing the number of copying machines on the basis of real needs of the clients. For instance, by substituting a multi function copying machine (providing also fax, scanner and printer services) it is possible to eliminate 4 office devices.
Two year later, the experience could be considered extremely positive in terms of results achieved. Here an example: one of the biggest entities in the region requested the services. The suppliers founded in one of the floor of the building in which the authority works the following situation: 612 employees adopting 660 printers, 32 copying machines, 20 scanners and 45 faxes.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
After the rationalization service the offer provided by the supplier gave this result: 612 employees could only use 90 existing devices and 60 new multifunction copying machines. As a result, the local authority was able to eliminate 607 old devices, achieving relevant saving not only in terms of price (costs of maintenance) but also in terms of ecological impact (reduction of energy consumption, toner).
Power Point presentation from the Procura+ seminar:
http://www.procuraplus.org/fileadmin/template/projects/procuraplus/New_website/Seminar_2009_Zurich/22.10_Presentations/carpineti_Procura__ott_09.pdf
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
As local authorities and public sector bodies continue to be tasked with making savings and reducing carbon emissions, as well as being committed to sustainable energy management, a demand for voltage reduction technology was identified.
The Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO) is a local authority purchasing consortium based in Leicester. ESPO delivers a professional procurement and supply service to its member authorities and other customers with a combined spend of some £700 million per annum.
In addition, ESPO works collaboratively with four other professional buying organisations which are known collectively as ‘Pro5’. The five professional buying organisations have a combined purchasing power in excess of £3 billion per annum and seek to offer local authorities outstanding deals in key markets.
ESPO, on behalf of Pro5, developed and have established a collaborative framework agreement for voltage reduction technology.
Voltage reduction technology
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
The framework is available from 1st September 2009 for an initial period of 2 years with an option to extend for a further 2 years. The framework has four providers; Active Energy, EMS, MB Hunt and powerPerfector, and offers a variety of technologies covering voltage reduction, optimisation and stabilisation and associated services to enable contracting authorities and other public sector users to reduce the energy emissions from public buildings, achieve financial savings and improve their carbon efficiency. Organisations simply have to undertake a mini competition to determine which solution offers best value for money in terms of cost, energy and carbon savings.
Commenting on their new framework ESPO’s Director, Ken May (FCIPS) said:
“Local authorities and public sector bodies continue to be tasked with making significant savings; in terms of expenditure and carbon emissions, as well as being committed to sustainable energy management. ESPO on behalf of Pro5 has established a Framework Agreement with a small number of providers of voltage reduction and/or optimisation technology. The technology will assist the Contracting Authority to achieve voltage reduction and/or optimisation improvements, which include but are not limited to; increasing the current level of voltage supply resilience, increasing voltage efficiency and reducing the impact of transient and harmonic disruption, whilst reducing their carbon production levels, as well as making significant savings on energy bills”
For further information, please contact Kate Shaw (Group Buyer, Strategic Procurement & Commissioning) at ESPO on 0116 294 4007 or [email protected]
Full details of the contract and how to access it can be found on the ESPO Dealing Direct website – www.espodealingdirect.org - contract reference 438.
Power Point presentation from Procura+ seminar:
http://www.procuraplus.org/fileadmin/template/projects/procuraplus/New_website/Seminar_2009_Zurich/22.10_Presentations/Shaw_Performance_based_specifications.pdf
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Procurement of police shirts in Zurich The City of Zürich has a track record in green procurement dating back to the mid-1990’s. Its actions are wide-ranging, from purchasing shirts for the local police service made from certified organic cotton to using “Züri-coffins” – coffins made from wood originating from sustainably managed forests (FSC certified).
With the support of its citizens, Zurich now has the goal of becoming a 2,000–Watt Society by 2050 - a reduction from the present level of six tonnes of C02 per person to one tonne. The construction of the new Triemly Hospital will be carried out according to the new 2000-Watt Society standards. Zurich seeks to be ethical, as well as sustainable, and will soon introduce the International Labour Organisation1
Police shirts: Firstly, Zurich city council set out to make an inventory of all its textiles purchasing. A simple Excel tool was developed to include: department, type of textile, quantity, price, use and cotton proportion. The results showed that, not including hospitals, the city purchased 60,000 items of clothing.
(ILO) standard as a core purchasing criteria.
Working with Jens Soth of Helvetas2
The benefits of organic cotton were recognised - soil fertility, water conservation, biodiversity, non-contamination by agrochemicals and potential climate change mitigation. A decision was taken to switch
from a PE/cotton blend with 6 months to develop the product. This represented a quantum leap in environmental performance.
, the city selected the police shirt as a test case for using organic cotton. The existing shirt already had a relatively high cotton content and was below the value of a core tender. It was important to involve all parties in the process from the very beginning – including the purchasing department from the police, the city environment department and police officers.
1 http://www.ilo.org/global/What_we_do/InternationalLabourStandards/lang--en/index.htm 2 http://www.helvetas.org/wEnglish/index.asp mailto:[email protected]
Organic cotton textiles in public procurement
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Technical Performance In tests the organic cotton shirts out-performed the cotton blend for durability and comfort. Critically, they were overwhelmingly popular with the 100 police officers involved in the testing.
Ethical Considerations The cotton was sourced in Tajikistan. According to a report by the NGO, International Crisis, 3
Alternative farming methods, namely organic cotton as practiced in the Helvetas project in Kyrgyzstan were regarded as a potential solution to existing problems. The authors consider the sporadic availability of agricultural chemicals as a possible driver for organic cotton farming. Furthermore, they acknowledge the existence of the organic premium and the purchase guarantee by the cotton trading company Reinhart in this project.
the conventional cotton sector contributes to political repression, economic stagnation, widespread poverty and environmental degradation. Forced and child labour and other abuses are common. The organic cotton project of Helvetas in Kyrgyzstan was identified as a possible solution.
Low Carbon Footprint It is estimated that the carbon footprint of the organic cotton shirt is half that of the cotton blend shirt:
The yarn was spun in a 19th century textile mill, using modern machinery and hydro power:
Heat recovery is achieved in the dyeing and finishing processes:
3 http://www.pan-germany.org/newsletter/deu/news.html?id=55
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Transport is kept to a minimum:
Depending on the location and farming practices, organic cotton produces significant savings in greenhouse gas emissions – CO2 and NOX. Although these are not huge savings, they are easily achieved and can drive innovation.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
For the GLA group, Responsible procurement means pioneering socially, environmentally and economically responsible procurement to deliver improved quality of life and better value for money. The report uses a series of case studies to provide practical examples of how, working with the private sector, the Mayor is putting responsible procurement into action. Through leveraging the GLA group’s purchasing power and with a network of over 7,000 suppliers, the Mayor is leading by example in delivering outcomes which deliver tangible benefits to London’s economy, the living environment and build opportunity for all. The launch of Delivering Value for London took place at one of Transport for London’s (TfL) Highways Maintenance and Works depots, where the Mayor met young Londoners who have obtained apprentice positions on TfL’s contract for cleaning and maintaining London’s highways. The Mayor praised TfL’s contractors EnterpriseMouchel, Amey and Ringway Jacobs who have committed to responsible procurement and have already created 15 new apprenticeship opportunities with the support of TfL’s supplier skills managers. In addition,
depot owner EnterpriseMouchel is supporting initiatives designed to protect London’s environment, like introducing electric vehicles to its maintenance fleet. The Mayor said: 'I salute all the companies that are engaging with the GLA’s responsible procurement initiative. They are helping us to use the GLA’s huge purchasing power to deliver extra benefits to London, from training up young apprentices to embracing energy-busting, green technology.'
Delivering value for London
On 28th October the Mayor of London published his Responsible Procurement Progress Report, ‘Delivering value for London.’
The report outlines how the Mayor’s annual spending power of over £3 billion is being used to deliver extra value for money for Londoners by encouraging suppliers to provide increased economic, social and environmental benefits in the work they are awarded by the Greater London Authority (GLA) group.
Mayor meets young apprentices at launch event
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Delivering Value for London highlights progress made by the GLA group in implementing Responsible Procurement since the introduction of the Mayor’s new Responsible Procurement Framework in April 2009. This includes:
• All organisations in the GLA group achieved Gold Standard in London’s Green Procurement Code progress review. Gold standard is the equivalent of at least level three of the national Sustainable Procurement Flexible Framework that assesses progress on sustainable purchasing;
• Over 500,000 tonnes of waste has been diverted from landfill through GLA group recycling projects and nearly 40 tonnes of CO2 has been saved through the purchase and use of energy efficient equipment;
• Nearly 80 per cent of invoices from small to medium sized businesses, working for the group, paid within 10 working days;
• GLA Group contracts (including sub-contract opportunities) are
being advertised on CompeteFor, the online service allowing all businesses to compete for contract opportunities linked to the London 2012 Games and other major public and private sector projects;
• Over 100 organisations across London are now paying a minimum of the London Living Wage, with around 6,000 Londoners benefiting;
• More than 150 GLA group suppliers registering with the Mayor’s Diversity Works for London programme to improve their equality and diversity practices;
• In excess of 200 GLA group staff have received bespoke training on responsible procurement;
• TfL, the Metropolitan Police Service and the London Fire Brigade each won an award for excellence in responsible purchasing at the annual Green Procurement Code awards ceremony on 26 October.
Richard Barnes, Deputy Mayor, who sponsors the GLA Group Responsible Procurement Programme, said:
‘I am proud of the big strides we have made embedding responsible procurement into the Authority's purchasing procedures.
This report forms part of our commitment for the authority to be more open, accountable, transparent and cost effective. The challenges we face are significant, but I am confident that with the continued co-operation of our suppliers in the public and private sectors, we are setting the standard for responsible businesses in the Capital.'
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Transport for London has incorporated training, diversity and environmental outcomes in its £1.2bn highways maintenance contract. Through building these requirements into the tender process TfL has been able to secure a variety of positive responsible procurement outcomes from the three suppliers holding contracts. These have included:
o Creating 15 new apprenticeship positions and the creation of a relationship with the Windsor Fellowship to link graduates from disadvantaged communities into employment opportunities;
o The adoption of an innovative recycling process resulting in diverting more than 400 tonnes of material from landfill, and delivering more than 2,000m2 of resurfaced footway quicker and approximately 20% cheaper than traditional methods;
o Introducing electric and dual fuel vehicles into the fleet servicing the contract;
o The promotion of a proactive approach to equality and inclusion across the contract with one contractor appointing a dedicated Equality and Diversity Officer. The contractors have worked with TfL to sign up to the Mayor’s Diversity Works for London programme which supports the private sector in improving equality and diversity practices.
London Fire Brigade have increased efficiency and delivered cost and environmental savings, by changing its method and approach to distributing goods to its sites across the capital. Through ‘cross-docking’ the fire stations receive a single delivery of whatever they need directly from the supplier and benefit from a take back service whereby recycling items such as batteries, uniforms, and print cartridges can be returned to the distribution centre. Delivered efficiencies include reduced supplier delivery miles, lower handling costs and faster invoice payments. Cost savings have amount to approximately £97,000 through the vendor pre-pick.
The GLA led Courier contract has produced estimated financial savings of approximately £80,000, whilst reducing the negative environmental impact of the service. Each contractor is required to reach the first level of the Freight Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS) which includes provisions relating to environmental performance as well as safety and efficiency. Under the contract, the contractor is required to monitor carbon emissions arising from the work on a regular basis and to register with the Freight Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS) which contains provisions relating to environmental performance as well as safety and efficiency.
GLA group case studies in Delivering value for London
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
The Mayor’s Electric Vehicle Delivery Plan recognises that the GLA Group should be leading by example. The current GLA Group fleet numbers about 8,000 vehicles; our aim is for 1,000 to be electric by 2015. The initial analysis identified 975 vehicles that could be converted to electric or plug-in vehicles over the next few years.
Further work is being undertaken to test suitable alternatively-fuelled and electric vehicles and examine the most appropriate use of infrastructure. Collaborative procurement by all UK emergency services, and other public sector organisations, could have a major impact on the future growth of the electric vehicle market. This is why a comprehensive procurement plan will be put in place in 2009. At present the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) currently uses 123 hybrid vehicles, one of the largest hybrid fleets in the public sector. The GLA Group, through the MPS and TfL, are taking part in the Low- Carbon Vehicle Procurement Programme funded by CENEX, the UK’s first Centre of Excellence for low-carbon and fuel cell technologies.
For further information contact Collan Murray, Head of Responsible Procurement [email protected].
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Procurement of goods and services is increasingly seen as a key area where local authorities can help bring about a large number of changes which are needed to help make our society more sustainable.
By allocating the money we are spending anyway in a more careful fashion we can reduce our impact on climate change, reduce resource demands, support the growth of new technologies and associated suppliers, support more sustainable farming, reduce land fill waste by encouraging reprocessing and insisting on recylcate content in the products we buy.
We can eliminate poorly performing products in terms of their energy and
resource efficiency and even address issues such as child labour practices through our purchasing choices and practice.
The right approach can even help generate more employment, develop skills in new technologies and hence deal with a number of social issues.
For local authorities it can support their mandate to improve local well-being.
So is procurement an all-round tool to address many of these issues? Europe-wide the public sector spends over 2 trillion Euros annually.
This is serious money and offers the potential IF spent more wisely, to make a real difference.
Cartoon: Sendai City
Putting sustainable procurement into practice – a strategy
Helmut Lusser, Chair of Global to Local, shares his views on the way forward for sustainable procurement.
Alas, like in so many other areas where we are trying to bring about a more sustainable future the plethora of strategies, plans and exhortations are nowhere near met by sufficient actions. Purchasers dare not specify, or are not aware of, new technologies; businesses are reluctant to invest, the imagined future does not materialise.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Very little real change has taken place
The impasse appears particularly crass in the UK where big announcements were made by the UK Government in 2005, during the UK Presidency of the EU, that the UK would be one of the leaders of sustainable procurement in 2005. This was followed by a report in 2006 by the UK Sustainable Procurement Task Force, the main focus of which was to highlight the 10 key commodity groups bought in the public sector with the highest sustainability impact.
It also suggested a methodology for implementation – the flexible framework – that was to help public procurers to tool up and gain the competencies and confidence to make more sustainable procurement decisions.
That seems to be where things got stuck – although 100s of tools to do virtually anything with procurement have emerged, analysing and measuring everything from LCAs (Life Cycle Analysis), WLC (Whole Life Costing),
CO2 impact, very little real change has taken place. We will soon have reached 5 years after the UK presidency of the EU and there is little sign that the early lofty ambitions will be realised.
Fig 1: The focus for change: commodity groups with highest sustainability impact (from sustainable procurement task force report)
• Construction
• Health and Social Work
• Food
• Uniforms, Clothing etc
• Waste
• Pulp. Paper and printing
• Energy
• Consumables
• Furniture
• Transport
It is probably futile speculating why so little is happening apart from musing that talking is one thing – doing, experimenting, taking the risks entailed in innovation another.
Perhaps it is also naïve to expect public sector procurers to bring about the desired changes in a situation where it is only the procurers who have to take the risk and consequences of failure.
As such, failure is the inevitable bedfellow of experimentation and innovation.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Let’s look at the market and where we are today
The UK Sustainable Procurement Task Force Report was intended to send a signal to industry that a higher degree of sustainability is needed especially around the key commodity groups. True in some areas we have had much better performing products that meet a range of sustainability criteria for some time and they are getting better all the time. Examples include consumables such as remanufactured printer cartridges, a wide range of 100% recycled post consumer waste paper, products with wooden components or fibre that are FSC labelled, environmentally sensitively produced food (organic), energy efficient white goods and lighting and a wide range of renewable energy and so on.
However, with few exceptions, much of this is not yet mainstream, as is obvious to anybody who looks into a local
authority procurement catalogue – green labels indicating better environmental or sustainability performance are still in the minority.
In the recent past we, at Global to Local, have tried to identify and source:
more sustainable furniture: eco-labelled office furniture now starting to be available, for school furniture standards are still being finalised and there is nothing as far as we can see on the market)
sustainable textiles / uniforms – we drew a blank when trying to source these in any significant quantity
a wider range of high thermal performance insulation materials for example based on wood fibre – no interest to tender for these in the UK
Part of the problem lies in the fact that much eco-innovation emerges abroad and many of the more sustainable products are made in other parts of Europe responding to the more energetic policies and actions. for example, in Scandinavia, Germany or Austria to mention a few. The story of a Cotswold builder who sought to encourage an Austrian firm to start producing clay blocks in the UK (using a building method that does away with cavity walls and that easily achieves the type of thermal performance needed to achieve the demanding standards of the sustainable homes code) and got as the response – we don’t see a demand in the UK – illustrates the problem.
Building materials: Germany, Austria PV production, Germany, China, Central Europe
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
On a more positive note we have been able to identify a wide range of emerging products some of which meet exacting eco-label criteria, in addition we have identified products for which no criteria have been developed but that make great steps towards reducing for example energy and resource impacts. These are products waiting to be lifted into the mainstream of the marketplace – which will only be possible IF procurers were aware of them or were guided by an imperative to help transform the market.
My judgement is that there is an emerging market and innovation going on in a wide range of areas BUT this needs to be supported by a genuine willingness to start introducing these products in framework contracts and other major procurement mechanisms.
Let’s now look at where procurers are and where we could be... Leaving the issue of finance and costs to the end.
What we do with our tenders
Bearing in mind the recognition that we have key commodity groups that have a fundamental impact on our resource and energy use it is strange that there are still tenders going out that don’t do everything possible to rein back those resource implications.
It is probably not far off the mark to say that the GPP toolkit, with its specification guidance, produced by the EU is virtually unknown in the UK. And yet here are some solid solutions for procuring more sustainably for a number of key commodity groups.
Cut and paste is probably all that is needed in many instances.
It is probably also true that most procurers will not have visited the EU ecolabel website (EU flower) that contains the criteria needed for obtaining the label and also has a rapidly growing catalogue of producers and products that have been registered.
The beauty for anybody worried about contravening EU procurement regulations is that the criteria of this label are totally in conformity with the regulations and can be used together or individually without any concerns in that direction.
Figure 2 – EU Flower and GPP tool kit categories
Product Categories EU Flower eco-label GPP Toolkit categories
Bedding Copying and Graphic Paper
Footwear Cleaning Products and Services
Do it yourself Office IT equipment
Services Construction
Gardening Transport
Household Appliances Furniture
Cleaning Electricity
Lubricants Food and Catering Services
Electronic Equipment Textiles
Textiles Gardening Products and Services
Paper
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
The consequences of this lack of take-up of more sustainable product specifications is that procurers are not writing their specifications in such a way that is building on best available research in terms of sustainability performance. This means that procurers are failing to use contract specifications as a tool to fulfil their role in making procurement outcomes more sustainable.
Although a number of tenders, but far from all, seek to add in their evaluation weighting a substantial score for sustainability issues, this cannot compensate for a fundamental lack of direction in the specifications.
And how we could adapt them?
What we need to do is fairly clear:
The objective for a specification should be to bring into the market more sustainable alternatives. This could be done gradually over several contract periods, initially alongside more traditional products. The aim should be to eliminate worst performers from a sustainability point of view and set strong signals to the market that performance improvements will be necessary;
The knowledge for writing such specifications and setting the necessary criteria are out there – GPP toolkit, the EU flower eco-label and a wide range of other European Ecolabels if that is not enough. It is critical that this experience is tapped into – it is based on better research than any individual local authority is resourced to engage in.
If we need to know about performance of more sustainable products, which we can’t source in the UK, we can assume
that there will be examples in use somewhere else in Europe. Just ask colleagues abroad.
And by the way, our experience shows that companies trading in the UK as well as in other parts of Europe often offer more sustainable solutions in countries where the demands for such solutions are more robust. So asking for them here may just make available products in the UK which already exist in other parts of Europe. It is by creating a demand the products will emerge.
Tender constructions should be such that it is clear that more sustainable products are being sought (in the Title of the tender), specifications need to be crystal clear about the demands for more sustainable products (even if only as part of an offering), and award criteria need to strongly recognise the technical competency and innovation
skills necessary to drive sustainable product
development.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
A whole organisation practical approach
To demonstrate how more sustainable procurement can be gradually implemented I’d like to cite the work that Global to Local (G2L) is doing jointly with ESPO at the moment.
ESPO is a procurement consortium set up by 7 Local authorities and works closely together with 4 other procurement consortia to procure goods and services for the public sector, the Pro 5 group. Together the 5 organisations cover most of England. ESPO take the lead on sustainability issues and lead on the development of the National Sustainable Products Catalogue 2007-08.
The procurement consortia often take a lead on behalf of each other and procure products or services regionally or nationally on behalf of their members or local government generally.
Their purchasing power is substantial and market influence significant. In fact these are the ideal organisations for leading the charge towards more sustainable procurement.
In 2008 ESPO commissioned G2L to draw up a sustainability policy for the organisation and make some suggestions as to how sustainability considerations could be mainstreamed into the procurement activities. This resulted in a report that suggested a gradual step wise approach to making the organisation produce more sustainable outcomes.
Recommendations included an annual sustainability assessment of all contracts due that year to allow a focus on those most significant, a new set of questions to gauge sustainability considerations and a new draft set of contract conditions. In parallel we carried out a sustainability assessment of a contract coming up for renewal to test a methodology that would help buyers to reshape the next contract and make the outcomes more sustainable. The pilot was deemed a success and its recommendations were largely accepted.
This led to a wider experiment, which is currently underway, with 11 contracts being subject to a sustainability assessment and recommendations.
Examples of Contracts examined
Educational Furniture
Office Furniture
Lubricating Oils and Greases
Community Meals Service
Groceries and Provisions
Self drive Vehicle Hire
Electric Lamps
Computer consumables
Print Framework
Pencil
The contracts were chosen not only for their sustainability impact, but also to ensure that all 8 buying groups were exposed to the process. The process started with a meeting between the
lead buyers for each contract and G2L marking a partnership where ESPO’s procurements skills and G2L’s sustainability skills were brought together. A discussion explored to what extent
sustainability issues had been covered in the current contract and what the in house knowledge of markets and emerging products were. In some areas this knowledge was
considerable, in others buyers had not yet started to consider the issue.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Reports
Following the meeting G2L then trawled the market for products and performance criteria for the subject of the contract and produced a report for each contract. The reports followed a standard pattern:
The first part of the report looked at the substance of the products or service being tendered and how the tender could be adjusted to generate more sustainable outcomes:
Firstly the key sustainability impacts of the contract were highlighted; following this the sustainability performance criteria relating to the products or the service were examined – typically this could be criteria from third party verified eco-labels or some other standards laid down. Thirdly the market availability of products meeting those criteria was explored. This was particular important in order to understand how extensive the demands could be in the tender. A well populated market which will also yield competitive pricing and specifications that can result in more sustainable outcomes, is likely to be more successful. Conversely where products are only just emerging
or production capacity is limited it may be necessary to introduce such products alongside more traditional offerings until the market picks up.
The second part of the report examined the integrity of the tender documentation and made suggestions geared to pushing the sustainability message:
This included exploring whether the title could be made to signal an intention to buy more sustainably, which direct changes could justifiably be made to specifications – arising from the examination of the first part of the report - and how the selection and award criteria, and associated questions, could be adapted to give a stronger impact to sustainability considerations.
Clearly the singularly most important aspect is to have robust specifications that help drive sustainability considerations.
The report was then taken away by buyers, examined and the recommendations in many cases implemented.
Lessons learnt so far
Implementing sustainable procurement in an organisation is hard work – as it requires completely new additional specialisms and the ability to tap into information sources hitherto not used. It is like learning a new computer programme – can’t be done in isolation but needs to be done on the job. Once the lessons are learnt much less tuition and support is needed and finally only occasional help might be required.
Bringing in outside help is probably a good idea – it is only likely to be needed once for each commodity. After that help can be used to benchmark specifications for example against European Best Practice;
Driving sustainability is best done on big contracts – that is where influence is most significant – and where significant changes can take place. It needs determination to succeed and imagination to allow higher initial purchase costs to be managed for example where there are life time savings.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
What has helped sustainable procurement most? It is worth emphasizing that there is a lot of help available out there for buyers in particular in terms of market influences prompted by EU legislation. The Energy labelling directive for example has been phenomenally successful in terms of changing entire industries across Europe. Having successfully transformed the white goods industry, new requirements by the EU commission now affect lighting and vehicle CO2 emissions. Requirements are set for several years ahead and any buyer who is aware of for example the future vehicle emissions requirements (which stretch into 2015 an onwards) can already tap into quite a buoyant market. The Government’s own requirement for vehicle procurement (max 130g CO2 / km) is such an example, which helps drive development and supports critically needed restraint on vehicle emissions.
A word about costs Costs and cost savings will be critical for years to come and there is a fear that this will derail any changes that for example entail higher upfront costs, even if there are demonstrable savings during the life time of a product ably documented in Life Cycle Costings or Whole Life Costings.
It is unrealistic to assume that we can make any significant headway in procuring more sustainably if we can only go for the more sustainable product if it is cheaper – we certainly won’t reduce our carbon significantly that way. One solution would be to buy less and hence save on quantity what we need to pay on quality. This is a question we need to face head on. Otherwise sustainable procurement remains an ambition never to be realised.
The challenge – key commodity groups I am constantly amazed at the gap between the production of exciting and challenging strategies with wide ranging ambitions, which the UK Government excels in, and the inability to speedily implement those. If sustainable procurement was as important as it was claimed to be and one of the solutions lay in dealing with the 10 key commodity groups then why have there been so few signals to industry and purchasers outside government to sharpen up procurement in those areas. As central government normally is not reluctant to tell local government and the rest of the public sector what to do, it would seem to be a simple issue to commit the public sector across the board to minimum specifications in those 10 areas type max emissions permissible for cars and small vans 130g CO2 km. After all the 10 key commodity groups are the ones with the biggest impact – dealing with those competently would by definition bring the biggest benefits and create very substantial benefits across the UK in terms of CO2 and resource savings. Such a signal would also quickly design out poorly performing products and services, would help refresh production techniques, prompt eco-innovation and support many of the government’s sustainability objectives. And it would pave the way for the many other product groups and services that need to be made fit for the future.
• Global to Local worked with ESPO on the 2007-08 Sustainable Products Catalogue and are currently helping ESPO to make a number of key national and regional contracts more sustainable.
• Global to Local Ltd is the National Coordinator for the Procura + campaign • Global to Local Ltd is a partner in the SMART SPP project
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Public sector bodies in the UK spend over £220 billion on goods and services. This gives them the opportunity to use their purchasing power to influence suppliers for the wider benefit of UK environment, economy and its citizens.
It is now widely accepted that the UK government needs to align sustainable procurement alongside value for money procurement to secure long-term benefit rather than focussing on short term advantage. For public procurers buying green addresses many environmental issues such as waste, water consumption and carbon emissions. However, being environmentally sustainable can also help cut costs. For example, buying energy efficient products can not only save on energy bills but also cut carbon emissions – carbon costs money, cutting carbon saves money.
Defra is the UK government department responsible for the environment, for food, farming and for rural affairs. Defra’s Sustainable Products and Consumers (SPC) team is responsible for projects to deliver UK sustainable public procurement policy and product specifications. One of the team’s key projects is to support the achievement of the UK target for the EU’s Green Public Procurement initiative. This is an EU initiative designed to allow purchasers across the public sector to take account of environmental factors when buying goods, services or works. As a key element of the European Commission’s sustainable consumption and production action plan launched in 2008, the aim was to improve the environmental performance of products and increase the demand for more sustainable goods and production technologies.
GPP covers product groups which have a high impact on the environment such as construction, food and catering services, and transport. It is closely aligned to the Eco-label scheme which provides suppliers of products and services with an environmental benchmark for their production and performance. Indeed many of the GPP criteria are derived from Ecolabel standards. Although GPP is a voluntary initiative, there is an agreed political target which requires that 50% of procurement tenders should be “green” by 2010. The percentage will be expressed in both number and value of green contracts as compared to the overall number and value of contracts concluded in the sectors for which common “core” GPP criteria have been identified.
Green Public Procurement in the UK – targets and benefits
John Conway, Sustainable Products and Consumers, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, explains why Buying Green is a key priority for the UK government.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
How does GPP work? GPP sets minimum, ‘core’ criteria as well as best practice “comprehensive” specifications for a range of product groups. Core criteria address the most significant environmental impacts; comprehensive criteria are intended for procurers who wish to purchase the best environmental products available. GPP can support sustainable public procurement by providing stakeholders with an opportunity to develop a more sustainable supply chain. The EU has developed a toolkit which consists of 3 independent modules. Module 1 A strategic module which seeks to raise the political support for green public procurement within an organisation targeting in particular decision makers. Module 2 A legal module which seeks to clarify legal issues and is designed for both strategic and operational levels. Module 3 An operational module that includes concrete examples of environmental criteria for 10 product and service groups, for use in public tendering procedures.
Advantages of adopting GPP Adopting GPP means that contracting authorities whether for local bodies or purchasing organisations can take into account environmental elements when procuring goods, services or works at all stages of the project and within the lifecycle of procured goods. This enables organisations like local authorities to have a clear way of demonstrating how they will meet their Carbon Reduction Commitments and other requirements to reduce their impact on the environment. Another advantage of GPP is that its EU wide scope means that competition for goods and services is not distorted by member states adopting diverging procurement criteria. Furthermore standards which are applicable across the EU provide incentives for European industry to invest in new technology that in the long term will improve its competitiveness.
Progress with GPP The UK is currently one of the GPP forerunners. As well as the achievement of the UK target, Defra aims to spread best practice internationally and influence the direction of EU initiatives so that they deliver challenging, achievable and coherent product sustainability improvements by 2011. Next steps SPC is also focusing on raising awareness of the opportunities offered by GPP to organisations from the wider public sector. In particular we are developing a training package that will demonstrate the practical steps procurers can take to buy green as well as the impact it can have on their targets for sustainability.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
GPP product sectors are:
1. Construction (covering raw materials, such as wood, aluminium, steel, concrete, glass as well as construction products and operational and end-of-life aspects of buildings, maintenance services, on-site performance of works contracts) 2. Food and catering services 3. Transport and transport services 4. Energy (including electricity, heating and cooling coming from renewable energy sources) 5. Office machinery and computers 6. Clothing, uniforms and other textiles 7. Paper and printing services 8. Furniture 9. Cleaning products and services 10. Equipment used in the health sector
Further information A link to further background information on GPP, along with the GPP toolkit (a package designed for public procurement practitioners, detailing the specific proposed criteria): http://ec.europa.eu/environment/gpp/index_en.htm
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Waterless Washing Machine A virtually waterless washing machine from British company Xeros is poised to hit the North American market.
The Xeros washing machine, which takes its name from the Greek word for “dry”, cleans clothes using reusable nylon polymer beads with an inherent polarity that attracts stains. The technology builds on research out of the U.K.'s University of Leeds and has been applied in a concept washing machine with the help of Cambridge Consultants.
By replacing the majority of the water with reusable nylon polymer beads, the machine is able to clean clothes in less
time than traditional machines, using 30% less energy and significantly less detergent than normally required. The electricity saving is increased further by reducing the need to tumble dry, assuming the end user currently does this in addition to washing.
Now, after three years of testing, Xeros, has struck a deal with Kansas City-based GreenEarth Cleaning. It aims to start reselling Xeros washing machines throughout North America next year - the target market consists of commercial dry cleaning and laundry operations.
http://www.xerosltd.com/
Floating wind turbines The world's first full-scale floating wind turbine is on stream. Hywind is anchored 10 kilometres off Karmøy, in south-western Norway. The Hywind pilot is to be tested over a two-year period. It combines technology from both the wind power and oil and gas sectors, and draws on expertise gained from StatoilHydro’s long offshore experience.
Conventional offshore turbines are anchored to the seabed with large monopoles, which limits their use to shallow waters. By anchoring the turbine with chains, it can take advantage of the stronger winds further offshore. http://www.statoilhydro.com/en/TechnologyInnovation/NewEnergy/RenewablePowerProduction/Onshore/Pages/Karmoy.aspx
New Technologies
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Photovoltaic Konarka Power Plastic is a photovoltaic material that captures both indoor and outdoor light and converts it into direct current (DC) electrical energy. This energy can be used immediately, stored for later use, or converted to other forms. Power Plastic can be applied to a limitless number of potential applications – from microelectronics to portable power, remote power and building-integrated applications. Unlike traditional silicone solar panels, which are rigid and heavy, these are lightweight and flexible.
Konarka Power Plastic solar panels have been integrated into German-based Neuber's Energy Sun-Bags, the lightest solar energy bag available on the
market. Now available for purchase, the business and leisure bags charge mobile phones, digital cameras, iPods, Mp3 Players and more with solar power. http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2009/10/neuber_energy_sun-bag.html
Water Seawater Greenhouse, a London-based company is piloting projects to extract fresh water from the sea using solar power.
The Seawater Greenhouse uses the sun, the sea and the atmosphere to produce fresh water and cool air.
The process recreates the natural hydrological cycle within a controlled environment. The entire front wall of the building is a seawater evaporator. It consists of a honeycomb lattice and faces the prevailing wind. Fans assist and control air movement. Seawater trickles down over the lattice, cooling and humidifying the air passing through into the planting area.
Sunlight is filtered through a specially constructed roof. The roof traps infrared heat, while allowing visible light through to promote photosynthesis. This creates optimum growing conditions - cool and humid with high light intensity.
Cool air passes through the planting area and then combines with hot dry air from the roof cavity. The mixture passes through a second sea water evaporator creating hot saturated air which then flows through a condenser. The condenser is cooled by incoming seawater. The temperature difference causes fresh water to condense out of the air stream.
The original pilot design has now evolved into a lower cost solution using a light but strong steel structure similar to a multi-span polytunnel. This design has been tested and validated through a second Seawater Greenhouse that was constructed on Al-Aryam Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates in 2000. In both cases, crop production has been outstanding, with the Greenhouse supplying in excess of the water required for irrigation.
http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/technology.html
News
A selection of news items from the eg website database: www. egemagazine.com Click on a category link
• Biodiversity & Natural Environment
• Climate Change
• Education
• Energy
• Environmental Management
• Europe & International
• Health and local wellbeing
• Housing and Construction
• Local governance
• Parks and open spaces
• Planning and regeneration
• Rural
• Transport
• Water
Biodiversity & Natural Environment Countryside Survey 2007 http://www.countrysidesurvey.org.uk/
A report containing the results from the Countryside Survey for 2007 is now available, providing an audit of the natural resources of the English countryside. The Survey has been carried out at regular intervals since 1978 allowing for a comparison over the years. The new results for England show some positive signals for conservation of biodiversity across widespread and common habitats, but these signals become more mixed at the finer scale. Some of the key messages from the survey include:
• An increase in frequency of the plant species used as food by butterfly caterpillars and farmland birds in broadleaved woodland and arable and horticulture broad habitats, as well as along hedgerows;
• Based on vegetation criteria alone, almost 80 per cent of ponds in England were in poor condition in 2007;
• The total length of woody linear features decreased by 1.4 per cent and the total length of managed hedgerows decreased by 6.1 per cent between 1998 and 2007, with a large proportion of these managed hedges turning into lines of trees and relict hedges; and
• 50 per cent of managed hedges were in good structural condition.
Survey results for Wales and Scotland, published earlier in Summer 2009, are also available online.
Climate Change Responses at regional level http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/panorama/pdf/mag31/mag31_en.pdf
The autumn edition of Panorama magazine, from the Directorate General on Regional Policy, highlights the crucial role of EU regional policy in addressing climate change. Panorama presents two regions whose efforts to become energy independent are beginning to bear fruit (La Réunion, France and the city of Güssing in Burgenland, Austria) thanks to support received by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The issue also aims to clarify what is at stake at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009 and asks experts what regions can do to address climate change. Furthermore, Panorama explains how the recent changes made to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) regulation can give a boost to sustainable energy investments in buildings.
Global risks, challenges and decisions http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/files/synthesis-report-web.pdf
A report has been published, presenting an up-to-date overview of a broad range of research relevant to climate change, including fundamental climate science, the impacts of a changing climate on society and environment, and the many tools and approaches available to deal effectively with the challenge of climate change. The report has been produced by a writing team comprised of members of the Scientific Steering Committee for the international congress on climate change, held in Copenhagen from 10-12 March 2009. Most of those attending the Congress were researchers, many of whom have also been contributors to the IPCC reports. Abstracts for all of the scientific presentations made can be found at www.iop.org/EJ/volume/ 1755-1315/6, and a transcript of the closing plenary session can be found at: www.environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/opinion/39126.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Education United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD, 2005-2014): Review of contexts and structures for Education for Sustainable Development http://www.unesco.org/education/justpublished_desd2009.pdf
Since its international launch in New York on 1st March 2005, the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) has made considerable progress in terms of concrete activities and actions on the ground. Apart from the regional and national launches, progress has been achieved in both institutional and programmatic areas at international, regional and national levels.
In light of the scale and severity of the global challenges we face, and at the mid-point of the Decade, a review has been published to take stock of what has been achieved so far, to consider the key lessons learned and to decide on priority measures towards achieving the goals of the Decade.
The review presents an overview of the contexts in which regions and countries around the world are trying to develop Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and related forms of education and learning. Regional and national realities have shaped how the development and promotion of ESD have occurred, thereby engendering a variety of interpretations of ESD.
In the next half of the Decade, it is argued that the focus should be on finding the unifying dimensions in our thinking about ESD and work towards identifying ways to translate general themes into particular applications responsive to local needs.
The report also sheds light on the structures that countries have put in place to promote and facilitate ESD.
It is hoped that the perspectives in this review should serve as a backdrop for not only making the DESD a success but also for ensuring that ESD occupies a salient position on international, regional, national and local agendas.
Energy Ecodesign requirements for energy-related products http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/09/st03/st03663.en09.pdf
The Council of the European Union has adopted a revised eco-design directive following a first-reading agreement with the European Parliament. The new directive extends the scope of the existing directive (2005/32) by covering in principle all energy-related products. This is designed to improve the energy and resource efficiency of a much wider range of products and reduce demand on natural resources, contributing to the security of energy supply and to the achievement of greenhouse gas emission targets in the EU.
The current eco-design rules deal only with energy-using products, such as washing machines, freezers or hair-driers. In the future, products such as windows, insulation materials, or certain water using products like shower heads or taps will be covered.
Bristol Sustainable Energy Study http://www.bristol.gov.uk/ccm/cms-service/stream/asset/?asset_id=30492172
Bristol City Council has published a report which presents the results of the Bristol Citywide Sustainable Energy Study. The underlying aim of this study is to assist Bristol City Council in developing local development framework (LDF) policies which positively encourage reduced energy consumption and carbon emissions from buildings and greater sustainable energy generation.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Environmental Management Involved: What makes stakeholder participation work? http://homepages.see.leeds.ac.uk/~lecmsr/involved/index.htm
Involved is a research project investigating what makes stakeholder participation in environmental management work. The project will also consider who benefits in what ways, and how outcomes are influenced by the design of participatory processes and the contexts in which they take place. In doing so, the project aims to develop new theoretical and methodological insights that can enhance stakeholder participation in environmental management. It will do this by analyzing different participatory processes in comparable socio-economic and biophysical contexts, and comparable participatory processes in different contexts. The project is co-ordinated from the University of Aberdeen, with collaborators from the Universities of Leeds and Leuphana, and members of the EU-funded DESIRE project. The project runs from 1 December 2009 till 31 December 2012.
Europe and international Eurostat Regional Yearbook 2009 http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-HA-09-001/EN/KS-HA-09-001-EN.PDF
Eurostat, the European Union's Statistical Office, has just published the 2009 edition of its regional yearbook. The publication provides an overview of economic, social and demographic developments in the Union's 271 regions, and where data are available, in the regions of the three applicant countries (Croatia, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey) and in the four EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland). The yearbook includes chapters on population, cities, labour market, gross domestic product, household accounts, structural business statistics, information society, science, technology and innovation, education, tourism and agriculture.
CIVITAS Awards http://www.civitas-initiative.eu/pics/news/docs/doc_428.pdf
The CIVITAS initiative aims to help cities achieve a more sustainable, clean and energy efficient urban transport system by implementing and evaluating an ambitious, integrated set of technology and policy based measures. Three European cities were crowned the winners of the 2009 CIVITAS Awards at the CIVITAS Forum Conference in Krakow, Poland, on 20 October 2009. Gent, the London Borough of Sutton and Nantes were recognised for their sustainable urban mobility activities and programmes, and described as the most outstanding, ambitious and innovative cities of 2009.
Health and local wellbeing Behaviour for Well-being, Environment and Life http://www.bewel.net/ BeWEL (Behaviour for Well-being, Environment and Life) is a network of 17 core researchers, led from Aberdeen University and established, through the UIBEN (Understanding Individual Behaviour Exploratory Network) initiative, to explore potential motivators of, and barriers to, individual ‘pro-environment’ behavioural change (‘sustainable behaviours’). In the face of important global and regional environmental problems, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and growing pressure on water and other natural resources, there is an urgent need to better understand factors that may influence the tendency of an individual to undertake desirable, pro-environment, changes in behaviour, such as; increased recycling, reduced waste, electricity and water use, and changes in purchasing behaviours.
The focus of BeWEL is on exploring under-researched potential links between tendency to undertake pro-environment behaviours and the ways in which people interact with nature; how exposure to forms of sensory contact with nature (such as visual images and sounds from nature) affects brain function, other physiological responses and feelings of personal well-being; and age related changes in brain function and how emotional responses operate.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Housing and Construction The Sustainable Energy Systems in Advanced Cities: Newsletter http://www.concerto-sesac.eu/IMG/pdf/Newsletter_7.pdf
The Sustainable Energy Systems in Advanced Cities (SESAC) project, funded by the EU, aims at showing how the local economy is able to thrive at the same time as less CO2 is emitted. This is being translated into innovative energy measures in both new building development projects and the renovation of existing buildings. The measures focus on energy saving and the use of renewable energy for electricity, heating and cooling. Delft, Växjö and Grenoble are all carrying out demonstration projects while Kaunas (Lithuania), Miskolc (Hungary) and Vastseliina (Estonia) are gaining knowledge and experience through the local energy studies they areperforming. The SESAC newsletter provides the latest information on the developments of the SESAC project as well as providing relevant information about the realisations implemented by the three advanced partner cities. It is published only under electronic format and ten issues are planned over the five-year period of the project. The latest issue, number 7, dated September 2009, is now available.
PREP for CIH Conference http://www.prparchitects.co.uk/assets/pdf/PRP_PREP%20Issue1_June09.pdf
PRP is one of the world’s largest multidisciplinary practices specialising in the residential, specialist housing, mixed use, commercial, retail, healthcare, hotel, education and leisure sectors.
It has issued the first in a series of PREP, produced to act as valuable briefing aids on topical subjects before important industry events. The first event targeted was the
annual Charted Institute of Housing conference, the UK’s largest social housing conference and exhibition, which took place from 16-18 June 2009.
The first issue contained articles on the subject of affordable sustainability, covering affordable sustainability and retrofit and refurbishment; affordable sustainability and the new build sector; and affordable sustainability in master planning.
Strategy for Sustainable Construction: Progress report http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/sectors/construction/sustainability/page13691.html
The Government has published the first progress report on the Strategy for Sustainable Construction which appeared in June 2008. The strategy is a joint industry and Government initiative intended to promote leadership and behavioural change, as well as delivering benefits to both the construction industry and the wider economy.
The first progress report highlights key achievements in government policy, particularly the Low Carbon Industrial Strategy and the Low Carbon Transition Plan, and industry commitment to the Halving Waste to Landfill target.
However, it argues that progress has been slower with regard to: implementing the biodiversity toolkit for planners; achieving BREEAM compliance on the government estate; increasing the trained workforce and apprentices in construction; and decreasing water consumption on the government estate.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Local governance Top tips for making savings through better procurement in professional services http://www.idea.gov.uk/idk/aio/13475393
The Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) has published the first in a series of procurement guides which raise awareness among members of the importance of procurement and potential savings. It provides tips on how a local authority can make savings through better procurement in professional services. Professional services are a collective term which includes temporary agency staff and consultancy. It is the fourth biggest external spend area in local government, after construction, adult social care and waste.
Parks and open spaces Valuing the natural environment http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/nochargev2_tcm6-14259.pdf
A new report from Natural England argues that a healthy natural environment provides cost-effective solutions to many of the challenges we face, from flooding and coastal defence, through to delivering fresh water and adapting to climate change.
It adds that investing in a healthy natural environment is essential to tackle the challenges of climate change and food, water and energy security, with new ecological solutions required to deliver multiple services and benefits cost-effectively.
The report suggests that this will require: a deeper understanding of the economic value of nature and natural capital and the use of an ecosystem services approach to better inform decision-making processes; enhanced public investments in the natural environment to deliver greater efficiency and improved outcomes; and new mechanisms and institutions that enable more ecosystem services to become part of the formal economy, thereby stimulating innovation, enterprise and investment in their provision.
Planning and regeneration Making competitions work http://www.cabe.org.uk/resources/making-competitions-work
A well planned design competition can get excellent results if sufficiently resourced and targeted, according to revised guidance published by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). The guidance draws on the experience of people who have run successful competitions to help in understanding what is involved. This includes: getting the best from a design competition; creating an excellent competition brief; making design competitions work within procurement structures; dealing with sustainability through competitions; choosing what to ask for in submissions; the best way to find the right people to execute your capital investment programme; and winning tips for design competitions. Feedback is welcomed to help improve this guidance.
Learning from city recovery in Europe and the United States http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/city-decline-and-recovery-summary.pdf
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published a summary of the findings of a three-year project which examined why cities decline, how they recover and how low-income communities within them fare under the impact of dramatic changes.
The study focuses on the fortunes of seven European cities: Sheffield and Belfast in the UK; Bremen and Leipzig in Germany; Torino, Italy; Saint-Étienne, France; and Bilbao, Spain. Other cities, including several in the United States, were also involved in this programme of work. The paper summarises common themes from these cities related to: the history and effects of their decline; the process and results of recovery; what the future might hold.
A full report on the study will appear in a book, Phoenix cities: The fall and rise of great industrial cities across Europe, to be published by The Policy Press for JRF in March 2010.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Rural The future is rural too http://offlinehbpl.hbpl.co.uk/misc/2LP/PL2-Resources-Documents/ rural%20prospectus.pdf
A new coalition of six organisations, representing councils, rural businesses, landowners, environmental campaigners, planners and rural communities, have launched the Rural Coalition. It has issued a prospectus, outlining a new agenda, covering the social, economic and environmental needs of rural areas, for the countryside to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Transport Action Plan on Urban Mobility http://ec.europa.eu/transport/urban/urban_mobility/action_plan_en.htm
The European Commission has adopted a comprehensive Action Plan on Urban Mobility which proposes twenty concrete measures to help local, regional and national authorities achieve their goals for sustainable urban mobility. The Action Plan is a follow-up to the Green Paper on Urban Mobility that was adopted on 25 September 2007. The debate that followed the adoption of the Green Paper confirmed the added value of action at EU level in the area of urban mobility while at the same time respecting national, regional and local competences.
The action plan includes a mix of proposals: improvements to improve passenger rights in urban public transport; support for research and demonstration projects, for
example on lower and zero-emission vehicles; the establishment of practical links between urban mobility, and existing EU policies for health, cohesion and disability. Other actions include an initiative to improve travel information and the continuation of the Commission's support for public awareness campaigns such as the European Mobility Week.
To accelerate the take-up of sustainable urban mobility plans by local authorities the Commission will prepare information material and launch training and promotional activities. It will also produce guidance documents on important aspects of these plans such as urban freight distribution and intelligent transport systems for urban mobility. The actions will be launched over the next four years, and the Commission will review progress in the year 2012 and assess the need for further action.
MOVE: The CIVITAS Initiative quarterly newsletter http://www.civitas.eu/docs1/CIVITAS_Newsletter_1_MOVE.pdf
The CIVITAS Initiative has unveiled the first edition of Move, a quarterly newsletter that contains the latest news on sustainable urban mobility. CIVITAS is a European Commission initiative involving cities across Europe, which supports and evaluates the implementation of integrated sustainable urban transport strategies that should make a real difference to the welfare of European citizens.
Move explains developments in the field, including the innovative actions being taken by pioneering CIVITAS cities, and policy updates from the European Commission. The first edition focuses on cleaner and better transport in CIVITAS Plus cities, with news from Gent (Belgium), Utrecht (Netherlands), Burgos (Spain), Coimbra (Portugal), Zagreb (Croatia) and Donostia - San Sebastián (Spain). The city in profile is Gorna Oryahovitsa (Bulgaria), while this edition’s big event is the CIVITAS Forum Conference 2009 hosted by Krakow (Poland)
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Water SWITCH: Managing water for the city of the future http://www.switchurbanwater.eu/
SWITCH is the name of an action research programme, implemented and co-funded by the European Union and a cross-disciplinary team of 33 partners, including universities, from 15 countries around the world. The importance of including water in overall city development strategies was one of the key issues emphasised at the Global City Water Futures Summit, held in Delft on 7-10 October 2009.
Journalists participating in the Summit have established a blog, reporting on the discussions, challenges, outcomes and innovative ideas. It also provides a place where anyone else who is interested in water issues can read, comment, discuss and share information.
Faced with rapid urbanisation, deteriorating infrastructure, population growth and extreme weather conditions, city water systems throughout the world are coming under increased pressure. Collaboration between stakeholders and more flexible technologies are considered to be indispensable in order to strengthen local resilience. The project is scheduled to end in 2011.
European partnership on water use http://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/eea-joins-forces-with-european-water-partnership
The European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Water Partnership (EWP) has announced that they are to cooperate to improve water use in Europe. The first
initiatives of the cooperation will be to develop a vision for sustainable water, raise awareness and strengthen information flows. This will involve cooperation on the implementation of the Vision for water in a sustainable Europe, launched in June 2008.
As a part of its next European Environment State and Outlook Report, due to be released in late 2010, the EEA will present the priorities and problems in implementing the water vision, as well as the joint efforts environmental and non-environmental stakeholders are taking towards the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, EU's main legislation on water quality. The second component of the cooperation will consist of awareness-raising, not only of the public, but also of key actors, to ensure the implementation of the vision as well as the directive. The EEA has also developed indicators and benchmarking on water use intended for key actors. The cooperation with EWP will promote such methods to wider audiences while encouraging both businesses and users to adopt them for greater transparency.
The final component will consist of improving water information management in Europe. Currently, nearly all relevant information on policy implementation is brought together in Water Information System for Europe (WISE), a joint development of the EEA, the European Commission and Member States. The cooperation with EWP will supply much-needed direct information from water businesses on water use and efficiency as well as sustainable solutions.
Water management challenges http://www.ciwem.org/events/lille_outputs.asp A conference, organised by the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, was held in Lille on 29-30 September 2009 to explore the important issues which have developed since the Water Framework Directive (WFD) came into force in 2000. The event provided an opportunity to share experiences, to gain feedback on innovative practical solutions and to address key topics about the operational implementation of the WFD. Presentations are available online.
eg magazine
Contents News eg-e website
Waste Alara Wholefoods win top Recycling Award Alex Smith MD of Alara, one of the UK’s largest muesli producers and the first organic cereal company in the world, was at the Valpak Awards ceremony at Shakespeare’s Globe on 24th October to collect the award for their achievement of becoming a Zero Waste food manufacturer.
This award, sponsored by Coca-Cola Enterprises, was as a result of the pioneering work that Alara, based in King’s Cross, have undertaking in becoming named as the first food company in the country to become ‘Zero Waste’. That is to say nothing is thrown away, whether it be scraps from the canteen being put on the wormery instead of the bin, or creating a box sharing scheme with other local companies. Alara have now made a pledge to be carbon neutral by 2010 and are well on their way to achieving this.
Alex now hopes to be able to pass on the message to other companies across the UK, on how to become more environmentally friendly. Linked to this is another of Alex’s projects as a London Leader of Sustainability, which is to bring more wasteland into active food production. Alara have already set an example of how this can be done by so far creating 3 garden projects - a permaculture garden, an organic vineyard, and a community food garden, for their employees and the local community to enjoy.
Community and employee participation in these projects is encouraged and organic values promoted. The gardens act as a real time illustration of the benefits of waste reduction and investment in one’s environment. With everything from pomegranates to honey produced in the gardens and the first crop of grapes due in spring 2011, the values and rewards of organic hard work are taught, lessons which Alara hope will be translated into the lives of the local community.
For more information on Alara: http://www.alara.co.uk
For more information on Valpak: http://www.valpak.co.uk
Municipal waste in Europe: Towards a European recycling society http://www.acrplus.org/municipal_waste_europe
After several years of studies and data gathering, the Association of Cities and Regions for Recycling and Sustainable Resource Management (ACR+) has published an analysis of European waste prevention and recycling issues and outlines the challenges which public authorities need to address. It covers the key challenges in waste management, the European legal context, broad management principles, collection methods, waste treatment techniques and cost issues. It also discusses the concrete application of concepts such as sustainable consumption and dematerialisation, and examines legal, economic and educational management tools.
Commercial and industrial waste in England: Statement of aims and actions 2009 http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/topics/documents/commercial-industrial-waste-aims-actions-091013.pdf
Defra has published a document setting out the Department’s aims and objectives for commercial and industrial waste in England and what we plan to do. The statement is intended for businesses, waste management companies, local authorities, regulators and delivery bodies and others interested in business waste and resource efficiency. The starting point is the UK sustainable development strategy, Securing the Future, and the England Waste Strategy 2007. This statement develops in more detail Defra’s approach to C&I waste consistent with the policy direction set out in those strategies.