News
Government's Sustainable Procurement Action Plan Launched
Released on 05/03/2007
The Government has presented a package of planned actions aimed at ensuring supply chains and public services become low carbon, low waste and water efficient, that they respect biodiversity and deliver wider sustainable development goals.
This Sustainable Procurement Action Plan, is allied to the Treasury's Transforming Government Procurement report, and forms the key Government response to the business-led Sustainable Procurement Task Force report.
The Government's sustainable operations targets for the Government office estate, include a pledge to go carbon neutral by 2012 and to reduce carbon emissions by 30 per cent by 2020. Achieving the existing sustainable operations targets will help deliver about one million tonnes of CO2 savings by 2020.
The Action Plan establishes accountabilities and reporting, and develops plans to raise the standards and status of procurement practice in Government. Government is also publishing an updated set of mandatory environmental product standards, that will ensure government departments procure the most sustainable commodities.
Environment Secretary David Miliband said: "The Government accepts the Task Force's challenge to use its 'immense buying power' to make rapid progress towards our goals to move to a low carbon economy.
"Public sector purchasing power must be harnessed to transform the market for innovative and sustainable solutions to make them more widely available and affordable to others.
"Procurement is key in tackling climate change and as a Government we must do more and practise what we preach in terms of tackling climate change."
Financial Secretary to the Treasury John Healey MP said: "Over the next decade procurement will become more central still in achieving value for money for the taxpayer and delivering the public services people need and expect. Transforming Government Procurement will underpin the search for innovative procurement methods and increased skills capability.
"We know that good procurement is sustainable procurement and we will work in tandem with the Government's Action Plan to strive for a carbon neutral estate by 2012 as we support the UK in meeting its Kyoto targets and tackling climate change."
The Sustainable Procurement Action Plan (PDF) has been published on the Sustainable Procurement website.
The updated set of standards document is available on the sustainable development website.
The Sustainable Procurement Task Force report was published on 12 June 2006 and is published on the DEFRA website.
Transforming Government Procurement is available from the HM Treasury website.
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Page last updated: 2008-10-20
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