News
Thanks to David LePage of Enterprising Non-Profits for his article on social purchasing this month.
Making a Social Impact through Sustainable Purchasing
“Too many people still act as if the private sector and the social sector should operate
on different axes, where one is all about making money and the other about serving
society. A better approach is to integrate these missions.”
Steve Case, co-founder of America Online and chair of The Case Foundation
The Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2005.
Social Value: The Forgotten Part of Purchasing?
Many progressive businesses today are adopting sustainability purchasing practices that reflect economic and environmental values admirably, yet may be overlooking the third dimension of sustainability – social value.
A business’s commitment to deliver social value helps confer the following benefits:
• Improved wage levels and working conditions and advances in human rights
• Improved health and safety
• Markets for sustainable products
• Strong local economies and reduced local taxes
• Support for vulnerable groups, more community services and reduced public expenditures
• Economic opportunity and benefit-sharing with indigenous people
• Improved conditions in the developing world.
Traditionally, corporate support for social value has come through charity and philanthropy. Businesses that consider the social aspects of their purchasing frequently do so from a defensive position. That is, they may see the ethical sourcing of goods and services as a way to stay within the law and avoid serious image problems connected with child labour and sweatshops.
The outlook is changing. Thanks to corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments, business is moving beyond risk management and charitable giving to stakeholder engagement and is much more willing to recognize the multiple benefits of social purchasing.
What is Social Purchasing, and Why Do It?
Social purchasing means purchasing to contribute social value, in addition to the usual values of price and quality. Through their purchasing practices, organizations can leverage a range of social benefits, which reflect well on them and the community. These include:
• Revenue for a non-profit organization with a social mission
• Employment for the hard-to-employ
• Support for business that is local or in a challenging geographical area
• Support for minority-owned business, or
• Support for ethically made or fair trade goods.
As the benefits of social purchasing crystallize, more business leaders are speaking with satisfaction of their own contributions and a successful triple bottom line.
How is it Done?
Organizations approach social purchasing differently, depending on the social benefits they wish to confer.
Canadian retailers, for example, can include supplier codes of conduct to improve the human rights, wages and working conditions of factory workers in the developing world, and ensure that overseas and local factories meet satisfactory levels of health and safety. Other organizations, including some mining companies for example, support local business and provide other local employment by working with Aboriginal suppliers.
Other organizations include screens in their Request for Proposals (RFPs) to favour vendors that offer social benefits, with the goal of supporting minority businesses and fostering employment for disadvantaged groups. Still others work on direct award contracts to ensure their purchases have the desired social benefit.
The Hudson’s Bay Company has a social compliance program, including a supplier code of conduct and audit program, to ensure its vendors meet its social standards. Simon Fraser University has added a social screen in all its RFPs, which led to an exclusive catering contract for its downtown campus to an organization that has hired 27 persons with barriers to employment over the years trough the Vancouver Social Purchasing Portal or similar associations.
Purchasing from Social Enterprises Spurs Job Creation
Employment for hard-to-employ persons is an important social benefit. If organizations are unable to hire hard-to-employ people directly, they can nevertheless purchase from suppliers that do so. This may mean contracting directly with social enterprises, or by purchasing products/services through a social purchasing portal.
Social enterprises are businesses operated by non-profit organizations for the dual purposes of providing a product/service in the marketplace and producing social value. For example, there are social enterprises across many product and service lines that employ persons with disabilities.
Vancouver area social enterprises that hire people with employment barriers include The Cleaning Solution, Pot Luck Cafe and Catering, Starworks Packaging and Assembly, and Landscaping with Heart. Find these and other social enterprises on the Vancouver Social Purchasing Portal. (hotline)
Finding Vendors via a Social Purchasing Portal (SPP)
An easy way for purchasers to find social enterprise businesses is through a social purchasing portal. Online portals now exist serving Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Surrey, Fraser Valley, Calgary, Vancouver Island and the Waterloo Region, and another three portals are on their way. These portals are accessible through the Canada Social Purchasing Portal at www.sppcanada.org/canada.
Businesses listed as vendors on the portals provide employment opportunities for hard-to-employ persons, making efforts in their human resources and employment practices to reach out to prospective employees outside of their routine recruitment programs. Some of these companies partner with community-based employment training agencies to ensure candidates are job-ready.
The Vancouver Social Purchasing Portal (www.sppvancouver.org) and the Enterprising Nonprofits Marketplace (www.enterprisingnonprofits.ca) provide a list of social enterprises in Greater Vancouver.
Overcoming the Challenges
Social enterprises are usually small or medium-sized businesses, and may be unable to satisfy large volume orders for good or services. Larger purchasers can still find ways to participate, for example:
• Unbundle large contracts into smaller deliverables;
• Source a defined percentage of contracts with suppliers that provide a social return;
• Direct source to contractors that offer a social value;
• Source from suppliers who themselves subcontract to social enterprises.
The Way Forward
A well-rounded approach to corporate responsibility means looking beyond the economics of a purchasing decision, to the environmental and social considerations as well. Many businesses and other organizations are discovering they can deliver social benefits globally through ethical sourcing and fair trade purchasing, and locally through minority and social enterprise sourcing. All this while staying strong and competitive. It’s a win for them, and a win for the communities they serve.
Where to Find Out More
For more information on the social benefits of sustainability purchasing, see our Guide to the Business Case and Benefits of Sustainability Purchasing.
In October, the SPN's Social Purchasing Workshop focuses creating employment benefits through social purchasing. In conjunction with Enterprising Non-Profits and the Social Purchasing Portal, SPN presents a panel of experts including VANOC, Mills Basics, Business Objects, and Starworks, who will share the their experiences in purchasing to provide employment benefits to the disability, aboriginal or Vancouver downtown eastside communities. Click here for more details.
Funding Update
Thanks to our new sponsors:
* Wastech
* Grand & Toy |
The mandate of the Sustainability Purchasing Network is to support organizations in their efforts to develop and improve their sustainability purchasing practices and to ultimately influence positive environmental, social, ethical, and economic impacts in BC and beyond.
Fall 2007 Event Calendar
To register for SPN Events, visit our website, or
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
us.
Learning Circle: Buying Greener Paper, September 20th, 10–11:30 am
Join other purchasers and green paper purchasing experts in a small group setting to exchange best practice, and discuss challenges and opportunities related to efforts to green one of the biggest purchases many organizations make.
Workshop: Introducing Sustainability Purchasing, October 4, 8am-1pm
This introductory workshops outlines key sustainability purchasing strategies, and teaches purchasers how to implement them. Topics include key tips for new/existing purchasers, communicating the business case and minimizing costs. Participants are given simple and practical examples, tools and resources.
Workshop: The Social Side of Sustainability Purchasing, October 25, 8am-1pm
This workshop introduces the benefits and challenges of social purchasing, focusing on the social benefits of job creation for the disability, aboriginal and downtown eastside communities. A panel of experts will join us to share the successes and challenges of purchasing for social gain.
Learning Circle: Removing Toxins from Your Supply Chain, November 8th, 10–11:30 am
Join other purchasers in a small group setting to exchange best practice, and discuss challenges and opportunities related to removing toxins from the supply chain.
Events
Forum on Public Procurement Sept. 30 to Oct. 3, 2007 (Calgary, Alberta)
The Canadian Public Procurement Council presents its annual conference and AGM. Share and update knowledge about public procurement and improve professional networking contacts. For program and registration information, please click here.
Green Purchasing Summit, Nov. 29-30, 2007 (Miami Beach, FL)
Eyeforprocurement presents a Green Purchasing Summit to introduce purchasers to:
* Benefits of Green Purchasing
* How to apply environmentally preferable criteria in the procurement process to improve environmental performance, while addressing ethics, social regeneration and economic concerns
* Updated information on which ‘green' products work as well or better than traditional products
Click here for more information.
Resource Corner
Social Purchasing Resources
Network Releases Guide to the Business Case and Benefits of Sustainability Purchasing
The SPN's Guide to the Business Case and Benefits of Sustainability Purchasing is a resource tool for those extending social considerations to purchasing. It is a resource for the business case for sustainability purchasing decisions, and includes many examples of the success of social purchasing. Click here to download the Business Guide.
The Business & Human Rights Resource is a leading independent resource on companies’ human rights impacts worldwide. The site covers discrimination, environment, poverty & development, labour, access to medicines, health & safety, security, trade. The website links to a wide range of materials publishes by various organizations.
The Maquila Solidarity Network advocates to improve factory conditions, win a living wage, and campaigns against multi-national corporate abuse of factories.
Since its inception in 2003, the Vancouver SPP has helped create over 100 placements of hard-to-employ people from Vancouver’s downtown east side and surrounding communities. Jobs equip them to participate more fully in their community, overcome homelessness and gain greater self-reliance. Search the SPP Vancouver Marketplace to purchase from businesses that employ the hard to employ.
Here are a few of the Vancouver businesses that can be found through the Vancouver SPP:
The Cleaning Solution, a project of the Canadian Mental Health Association, is a commercial janitorial service managed by and employing people living with mental illness.
Starworks is a social enterprise created to employ people with developmental disabilities to perform light labour and assembly work.
Potluck Cafe and Catering is a social enterprise catering company operating in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Enterprising Non-Profits (ENP) promotes and supports social enterprise development and growth as a means to build strong non-profit organizations and healthier communities. The ENP Marketplace includes a listing of Canadian social enterprises, offering a broad range of products and services, in rural and urban communities across the country.
|
Sustainability Purchasing Network c/o Fraser Basin Council