SUPC’s Commitment

SUPC is committed to being a good citizen and this includes embedding responsible procurement across all aspects of the procurement process and its wider activities. We are also committed to supporting and promoting responsible procurement within our member institutions, within our office and among our staff. Our activities aim to address the social, economic and environmental aspects of responsible procurement.

Specifically, SUPC is committed to ensuring that we implement procedures and policies to support the elimination of human rights abuses in the supply chain, the removal of barriers for SMEs, the promotion of social value in tenders, and the protection of the environment.

To learn more about how SUPC is addressing each of the aspects of responsible procurement outlined above, please read our Statements on Modern Slavery, SME Engagement Strategy and our Sustainability Policy which can also be found on our Tools and Resources page.

What is SUPC Doing to Support Responsible Procurement?

We recognise the importance of responsible procurement in the procurement process, and our significant role in influencing suppliers to undertake more sustainable practices.

SUPC supports responsible procurement in a number of ways:

  • Our Responsible Procurement Risk Assessment tool at strategy stage acts to identify the positive and negative impacts of a particular procurement activity with the intention of maximising or mitigating the effects respectively. You will need to log in to access this tool on our resources page.
  • Question set available for use in tenders and call-offs to examine our suppliers’ approaches to various areas of the UN SDGs and Social Value TOMs. You can find the document on our resources page.
  • A new resource recently added is a Responsible Procurement glossary, developed by the UK Universities Purchasing Consortia (UKUPC) Responsible Procurement Network. The glossary brings clarity to some of the terms we use and is a live document, which we add to as required. You can find the document on our resources page.
  • Newly added is the Guidance for Developing a Carbon Reduction Plan for SME’s, developed by UKUPC. This guidance aims to help minimise the impact of the HE sector’s activities on the environment. You can find the document on our resources page.
  • We embed questions relating to environmental, social and economic practices within our tender documents and evaluation processes, some of the questions and requirements of our suppliers are flowed down into our contracts and KPIs.
  • Encouraging suppliers to operate sustainably as part of our contract management process and promote their success stories. · We operate a joint SUPC and LUPC Responsible Procurement Group that comprises procurement and sustainability experts.
  • We provide Scope 3 Carbon Emission Reports to institutions. The reports help our members understand their carbon emissions in the supply and value chains, and are the first step in setting reduction goals. · We support other sector sustainable procurement initiatives such as S-Lab, which supports safe, successful and sustainable laboratories.
  • Our tendering strategies, where possible, encourage smaller suppliers to bid and this helps maintain vibrant, healthy and sustainable supply markets. Our updated SME Guidance document shows how we help SMEs to bid more effectively.