Government outlines green procurement overhaul

Companies providing green products and services can expect a major boost after the government yesterday unveiled its long-anticipated delivery plan for meeting its targets on environmentally sustainable procurement and carbon emissions.

Following on from its recent commitment to ensure all government IT operations are carbon neutral by 2013, the Cabinet Office released a 167-page plan outlining how it intends to ensure departments consider environmental sustainability when making procurement decisions and better meet targets to cut emissions, waste and water use across their facilities.

Central to the new strategy are new rules that will ensure the performance of civil servants is judged on their ability to deliver against sustainability targets. The new Centre of Expertise in Sustainable Procurement (CESP) will monitor departments' performance on a constant basis and report progress to ministers and Permanent Secretaries every four months.

A spokesman for the Office of Government Commerce said that the new strategy demonstrated "a real step change in momentum" as the government seeks to deliver on its target of cutting carbon emissions from departments by 12.5 per cent by 2010/11.

He added that to ensure that the targets are met, the CESP would develop a plan for pan-government supplier engagement for release later this year and also host a conference this September for public sector procurement professionals. The advisory body is expected to advocate wider use of shared procurement practices that see different departments club together to buy goods and services, greater rationalisation of office space and wider use of preset sustainability criteria in tender documents.

Advocates of green procurement policies claim that with the public sector spending £160bn on goods and services each year it has the potential to stimulate and even create new markets for green products such as microgeneration technologies and low carbon vehicles if it sets stringent enough procurement criteria.

However, up to now the government has been roundly criticised for not doing enough to meet its own environmental targets with a flurry of reports earlier this year slamming Whitehall for failing to implement sufficient green initiatives.

The Sustainable Development Commission warned two thirds of departments were not on track to meet the target of reducing emissions by 12.5 per cent by 2010, while a similar report from the National Audit Office criticised civil servants for failing to keep accurate carbon emissions data. Those reports were accompanied by another study from the Commons Public Accounts Committee which claimed rules on sustainable procurement were being widely ignored by civil servants.

However, the Sustainable Development Commission yesterday gave the new delivery plan a tentative thumbs up, claiming that "the plan represents the most thorough and robust package produced by government to date for addressing the impact of its own operations and for inspiring change in the public and private sectors". It added that while "there is much more work to do on the plan before the SDC can be fully satisfied", the government should be commended for the new plan.