Author: Brian M
What is modern slavery and how does it link with schools, businesses, and their supply chains?
- Post author By Brian M
- Post date July 23, 2024
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First Steps for Schools and Suppliers to Protect and Promote Environmental Protection and Circular Economy
- Post author By Brian M
- Post date July 8, 2024
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This webinar is part of a series exploring the Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, how it relates to schools and suppliers, and what we can do about it.
In this session, we will explore:
- What areas in school operations can present opportunities for environmental protection?
- What areas in school supply chains will present the best opportunities for circular economy?
- What practical steps can schools and businesses take to start addressing these themes? What case studies are there to demonstrate this is possible?
In our last session, we explored the:
- UK Department for Education’s (DfE) Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy which mandates schools and businesses in the UK to play a role in reaching net zero by 2050, and;
- What practical steps schools and suppliers can take to begin addressing this.
Practical Steps for Schools & Suppliers to Meet the DfE Sustainability & Climate Strategy
- Post author By Brian M
- Post date June 26, 2024
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In 2021, the UK Department for Education (DfE) released its Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy. As a result, schools and businesses in the UK have a government-mandated responsibility to play a role in reaching net zero by 2050. However, sustainability and social impact is a tricky topic to navigate and it’s difficult to identify what the requirements are and what the correct first steps should be. To answer those questions, this webinar explored these questions on 26th June 2024 during lunch at 1215:
- Why are schools and businesses important in the push for net zero and local community benefit?
- What is in the DfE’s Strategy?
- What practical steps can schools and businesses take to start addressing the DfE Strategy?
- What case studies are there to demonstrate this is possible?
Navigating the New Procurement Landscape: The Procurement Act 2023 & it’s Impact on Suppliers in the UK
- Post author By Brian M
- Post date May 28, 2024
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In today’s ever-evolving business environment, staying abreast of regulatory changes is crucial for businesses aiming to thrive. The Procurement Act 2023 marks a significant milestone in the evolution of procurement regulations in the United Kingdom. Designed to foster transparency, fairness, and efficiency in public sector procurement, this legislation has significant implications for suppliers engaging in public sector contracts. Here are some key highlights.
- There will be a Central Digital Platform (CDP) for suppliers to register and store their details so that they can be used for multiple bids and see all opportunities in one place. Hopefully, simplified bidding processes will make it easier to bid, negotiate and work in partnership with the public sector.
- There will be demonstrations on this CDP from May 2024 onwards.
- There will be prompt payment for more businesses in public sector supply chains. And a stronger exclusions framework will take tougher action on underperforming suppliers.
- Small and medium-sized businesses welcome the changes too. They know procurers will have to consider the barriers facing smaller businesses and that obstacles will be removed around provision of accounts and insurance at the bidding stage.
- There will be a much bigger focus on pre market engagement so as suppliers this is a critical stage to get involved in.
- Greater transparency with publications on pipeline activity for higher spend thresholds
- More flexibility on process and procedures
- Social Value is still especially important, and the Social Value Model is still applicable to procurements.
- Suppliers are now required to demonstrate how their proposals contribute to broader social and environmental objectives.
- Incorporating social value considerations into bid submissions can provide suppliers with a competitive edge, as public sector buyers increasingly prioritise sustainability and community impact.
- A Procurement Review Unit has been established with three strands – Compliance which will investigate non-compliance issues, Review – free and impartial process for suppliers to raise queries and issues and to provide support reducing challenge, non-conformance etc. and Debarment – consideration around supplier exclusion and debarment lists.
For more information, please see the following link https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/transforming-public-procurement and contact Laura Davies – Director or Supplier Services at Value Match – Laura.Davies@value-match.co.uk
How to Solve 3 Common Sustainability Gaps We Found In Companies
- Post author By Brian M
- Post date May 27, 2024
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Both European and UK governments are beginning to increase requirements on the private sector to not only monitor, but also prevent potential and actual environmental & human rights risks, representing an increase in negative duties (meaning “an obligation not to cause harm”). This is demonstrated best in developments like the recent EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and German Supply Chain Act legislations that mandate companies within threshold to establish due diligence mechanisms to prevent risks. Looking more locally, the UK Government has established its Social Value Model which is included in public sector tender specifications. This represents a positive duty (meaning “a moral obligation to benefit or aid others”) on businesses bidding into the public sector to drive advances in climate action, local economy growth, lessening of inequalities, and wellbeing of the workforce and communities.
How Has Value Match Been Helping?
Over the last 12 months, Value Match has been using its Social Impact & Improvement Model (SIIM) Assessment to help businesses of all sizes and sectors identify what gaps they have in their operations and governance when it comes to sustainability. The SIIM Assessment is a tool that looks at a business’ policies, processes, and governance around sustainable practice, in context of its size and sector to ensure that the assessment arrives at proportionate feedback. Using this model, we conduct an assessment of the business across six areas of sustainability:
- Environment & Carbon Management
- Human Rights & Labour Standards
- Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
- Resource Use & Circular Economy
- Social Value Delivery
- Health & Wellbeing
Taking account of a business’ goals too, the model provides clear action steps and insights into what areas need to be prioritised in order to maintain competitiveness in sustainability and to future-proof practices ahead of further legislative changes.
What Have We Discovered?
Across our assessments on businesses of many different sizes, regional contexts, goals, focuses on private/public sector, and sectors of operation, these are the common gaps we’ve found and what we believe businesses should be focusing on to address them:
1. No carbon footprint baseline established
While not all businesses lacked a carbon footprint baseline, we found that some businesses that are either serving or wanting to serve the public sector in the UK lack this form of environmental impact assessment. Increasingly, the UK public sector is pushing the requirement for their suppliers to have carbon reduction plans as per the PPN 06/21 standard, in which a carbon baseline is a part of that planning document.
The creation of a carbon footprint baseline is critical to understanding where your organisation’s impact is at now, and contributes to a carbon reduction plan. The PPN 06/21 carbon reduction plan is a great way to identify where your business has impact and where efficiencies/reductions can be achieved across areas like:
- Direct emissions like fuel usage in vehicles (Scope 1)
- Indirect emissions like energy & gas for buildings & offices (Scope 2)
- Upstream and downstream emissions like employee commuting, business travel, wasted generated in operations, emissions from suppliers, and emissions from distribution (Scope 3)
Creation of a plan by this standard is best practice and ensures your operations are working toward a policy of Net Zero by 2050 at the latest. Value Match can support with this.
2. No social value strategy in place
Social value previously was quite difficult to define, however, the UK Government Social Value Model has provided 5 themes to outline what social value is in the UK:
- COVID-19 recovery: Helping local communities and economies recover from the effects of the pandemic through jobs, re-training, and community support.
- Tackling economic inequality: Developing the skill levels of the current and future workforce, driving uptake in high growth sectors with skills shortages, and narrowing inequalities between UK communities/regions.
- Fighting climate change: Encouraging environmental stewardship through making resource use more efficient and protecting and improving green spaces.
- Equal opportunity: Reducing inequalities through supporting those with disabilities into employment, providing good quality work regardless of sector or location, and combatting modern slavery risks in communities and supply chains.
- Wellbeing: Protecting and promoting mental wellbeing among employees and encouraging positive integration between local communities and private & public sector organisations.
All businesses, while having some activity that addressed social value in some way, did not have an overarching strategy directly mapped to the above 5 themes. This is a missed opportunity and gap, given that all public sector procurements must have a minimum 10% weighting afforded to social value considerations.
Developing a sustainability & social value strategy will enable your organisation to identify what areas of sustainability it can have a strong impact on. Not only that, but since human rights, community rights, and the environment are all interlinked, building that overarching strategy will also allow for a more well-rounded and cohesive approach to be developed to address multiple sustainability issues, rather than having them compete with each other. All effective and impactful initiatives need leadership from the governance level to be properly sustained and supported. This is also something that Value Match are working with organisations to implement.
3. Uncoordinated sustainability delivery through procurement
Many of the businesses we evaluated had no overarching sustainability objectives which they mandated suppliers to deliver through contracts. For those that did manage to deliver sustainability objectives, these were mainly to do with adherence to supplier codes of conduct; perhaps a few sustainability initiatives were delivered as part of a contract.
While its understandable that small- and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs) may not have the spending power to dictate certain outcomes, larger organisations that may be key suppliers in public sector contracts should be considering this in their supplier relationships. While sustainability initiatives and goals can be largely dependent on a client’s requirements, procurements internal to your business could be leveraged to deliver on sustainability as a standard requirement. This is why identifying which impact areas are important to your business, through a carbon reduction plan and a social value strategy, are critical to having a guided approach delivered through supply chains.
The reason that it is crucial to ensure delivery of sustainability initiatives through procurement and mandated through contracts is because there is increasing legislative pressure to have oversight over the impacts of your supply chains (as shown in the EU and German legislations). Similar legislation is already being debated in the UK Government in May 2024. Furthermore, larger organisations have a responsibility to use the influence and financial power they have, to drive private sector practice in the needed direction. There’s no time to dawdle and dally. For every 0.1C increase in global average temperatures, 140 million people’s homes become less survivable.
Case Study
Value Match recently helped a global engineering, construction, and project management client facing these challenges:
- While ad-hoc social value initiatives were delivered on projects, there was no overarching consistent strategy to guide initiatives more broadly, which also made gathering impact data challenging.
- The client’s sustainability department is a small function, with other functions not fully understanding the breadth of social value.
- The client had not established their social value baseline and benchmarking needed to be undertaken.
As a result, the client’s bid teams were often challenged in provided data and evidence to support social value requirements in tender responses.
Using Value Match’s SIIM Assessment, key gaps and recommendations were identified around the client’s internal procurements lacking standardised sustainability outcomes as part of contracts. From this, we identified the client’s need to develop a Social Value Policy directly mapped to the UK Government Social Value Model to home in on what outcomes were important to tender for moving forward. Beyond the recommendations, the report has served as a tool in raising awareness of social value areas internally and in persuading executive leadership staff. Development and rollout of this new policy is ongoing for the next 12 months to ensure consistent delivery of social value.
Takeaway Points
For businesses of all sizes to achieve meaningful impact that is relevant to their context, size, and sector of operation, they need to:
- Identify where and what their environmental & social impacts are.
- Develop a strategy identifying important impact areas and how to address them in a cohesive manner.
- Deliver these strategic outcomes through procurements, train staff to carry this out, and to encourage supply chains to follow suit.
Through Value Match’s carbon reduction plan, SIIM Assessment, policy development, and training offerings, we are happy to provide the support needed to help you on this journey.
For further information, contact Laura Davies
T: 07957 110 952
E: Laura.Davies@value-match.co.uk
ASCL Conference for a Sustainable Future – 5th June 2024
- Post author By Brian M
- Post date May 14, 2024
Categories
- Operations
- Education & Curriculum
- Biodiversity
Greenhouse Gas Protocol – Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard
- Post author By Brian M
- Post date April 8, 2024
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The Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard is a comprehensive guide developed by the GHG Protocol to assist companies in accounting for and reporting on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout their value chain. This standard outlines a structured process for companies to identify and account for both direct and indirect emissions associated with all their operational activities, from the production and procurement of goods and services to their use and end-of-life disposal. By integrating scope 3 emissions into their GHG inventory, companies can gain a holistic understanding of their environmental impact, enabling them to implement effective strategies to manage, reduce, and report these emissions. This approach not only supports better environmental management but also enhances corporate accountability and sustainability by aligning business practices with global emission reduction goals.
Modern Slavery & Human Trafficking Training as a First Step to Change
- Post author By Brian M
- Post date October 16, 2023
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It was estimated that in 2021 on any given day, there were around 50 million victims of modern slavery worldwide. With such a salient and pressing issue facing both the supply chains of the private and public sectors, awareness of the issue and how to combat it is crucial if meaningful impact and change is to be accomplished.
It’s not likely one will act on something they may not care about, and it’s certainly impossible to act on something one doesn’t know exists. In my time doing human rights related consultancy work, I’ve found that training is often the most effective way of driving awareness and inspiring action. That’s why I believe that bespoke training and awareness-raising is the critical first step when it comes to driving organisational change and empowering staff with practical steps.
Just this last September, I conducted a bespoke Modern Slavery Awareness Session that was made to not only raise awareness of the issue and its prevalence, but specifically how modern slavery and human trafficking can be prevented within the procurement function. Along these themes, we discussed a variety of case studies from which we were able to glean actionable steps for how to mitigate modern slavery and human trafficking risk in the business.
The Impacts and Learnings of the Training
Part of the importance of training is not just the content itself, but also being able to evaluate impact to improve the approach. Based on survey responses, this training was incredibly impactful, as can be demonstrated by trainees reporting a:
- 40% increase in understanding of MSHT.
- 61% increase in feeling equipped to spot exploitation.
We also found that key tools and bespoke aspects of the training increased the impact and learning, such as:
- Up-to-date and role-specific case studies.
- Making links to wider sustainability issues like social inequality and climate change.
- Workshop-style engagement through questions and discussion among participants.
Based on the amalgamated survey responses, the participants felt that the key things they took away were:
- The severity of modern slavery and human trafficking and that it must not be overlooked.
- How modern slavery and human trafficking is relevant to their job roles.
- The types of process steps that could be taken to detect modern slavery and human trafficking in procurement.
Of particular emphasis across responses was the interest for future learnings, specifically around how to analyse supply chains and suppliers for modern slavery and human trafficking risks for prevention. This is telling of the current landscape, as supply chains are highly complex and interconnected, which makes mapping of risk very difficult.
Value Match’s Approach to Sustainability
Bespoke training for specific issues, such as human rights, is crucial to gaining buy-in from staff and making a difference. However, it is but one component of an organisation’s wider sustainability strategy. Using the Social Impact & Improvement Model (SIIM), our Sustainability, Diveristy & Social Impact (SDSI) team support small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) identify gaps and improvements in their sustainability strategy to help them win contracts within the public sector. There’s not a lot of support out there for SMEs, but we at Value Match are determined to change that.
Navigating the Carbon Reduction Plan Journey – A Junior Sustainability Consultant’s Experience
- Post author By Brian M
- Post date September 19, 2023
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During my first few weeks as a Junior Sustainability, Diversity and Social Impact (SDSI) consultant at Value Match, my first project was to draft a Carbon Reduction Plan (CRP) for the organisation.
As I started off with limited knowledge about the purpose and requirements of a CRP, I began by expanding my knowledge through exploring the government guidance as outlined in Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 06/21. Carbon reduction plans are becoming increasingly important for businesses in the procurement of major government contracts. PPN 06/21 sets out clear requirements for CRPs. This is line with the UK Government’s commitment to achieve Net Zero by 2050 under the Climate Change Act 2018.
Once I had familiarised myself with the legislation and requirements for a CRP, I began by drafting a template that could be utilised not only for Value Match’s CRP but also to assist with the organisations we support and their carbon reduction journey. Creating this template allowed me to further familiarise myself with the structure, as well as the required information to collect for the plan, in turn aiding me with the production of a CRP checklist.
With these resources, I was able to develop a CRP for Value Match with the guidance and support from Value Match’s wider Sustainability, Diversity & Social Impact team and Carbon Footprint. The data required for the CRP was extremely easy to locate due to Value Match’s partnership with Carbon Footprint, our continued annual carbon offsetting projects and our free carbon calculator.
Throughout this journey I did encounter various issues, one particularly being DEFRA’s reclassification of homeworking factors as scope 3 emissions. This reclassification meant that our data reporting from previous years differed from the current year, as homeworking factors such as gas consumption were previously considered as scope 1 emissions. This led to some clarifications with Carbon Footprint, before updating the structure of the data in previous years to consider all emissions generated by Value Match as scope 3 emissions (as a predominantly homeworking company). This demonstrates the need for businesses to remain up-to-date with changes in reporting guidelines to ensure the best chance of winning public sector contracts; having trusted advisors is crucial to achieving this.
Through delving into this issue, I was able to expand my knowledge around the different scopes of emissions as well as my skills on problem solving in a fast-paced work environment. This is because our CRP had to be produced not merely for our own policy reasons but also for tender responses with a strict deadline. These learnings and skills will be vital to implement in the next CRP I produce. The journey of producing this CRP from start to finish alongside my development of various CRP related templates and resources has certainly instilled me with a foundation moving forwards to create further plans for external organisations.
With the correct professional support and insight from the SDSI team at Value Match, the creation of a CRP is an easy step in the correct direction for organisations wanting to becoming public sector compliant. Within a reasonable time frame with our help, your organisation could baseline it’s impact, create a CRP with our help and support and create an actionable plan to reach Net Zero by 2050.