Government Buying Standards
What are Sustainable Buying Standards?
The Sustainable “Buying Standards” have been produced by DEFRA (Department for Environment , Food and Rural Affairs) in order to promote sustainable purchasing. The “Buying Standards” are a set of specifications for products that have been assessed on their impact; they contain both minimum and best practice requirements.
For further information and the specifications please follow this link.
The specifications cover a range of areas including paper, transport and construction.
Why are they important?
All local authorities have targets to meet on efficiencies, water consumption, waste etc; the “Buying Standards” can help authorities meet these targets. The “Buying Standards” have been specifically designed for procurers and are sustainable specifications on commonly purchased products.
Sustainability is about improving the quality of life, whilst living in our environmental limits. By using the specifications in the “Buying Standards”; you will be taking a step towards achieving this ideal.
In addition to this Sustainable Procurement is assessed in the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) in Key Line of Enquiry (KLOE) 2.1 Commissioning and Procurement, evidence like the use of sustainable ‘Buying Standards’ can help to support this.
Procurement Lincolnshire are using a toolkit called the ‘Flexible Framework’ to achieve sustainable procurement, which will also be used to contribute towards the CAA one of the tasks in the Flexible Framework is promote the use of sustainable buying standards.
How can they be used?
When purchasing any of the products or services listed on the Sustainable Buying Standards website please make sure that at the very least you use the minimum requirements stated in the specifications. Remember sustainable procurement is good procurement.
