CCP Plus Sustainable Purchasing Project 2005-2007

Sustainable Purchasing Home Taking Action Resources

Background

: Recycled paper- a good place to start.

Following the successful Green Purchasing Pilot Project in 2003/04, ICLEI Oceania developed the CCP Plus Sustainable Purchasing Project to assist councils participating in the Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) Program target emissions reductions through the strategic purchase of low emissions goods and services

Eight NSW councils participated in the first round of the project in 2005/06:

Following the success of the NSW councils, ICLEI Oceania opened up the project to WA councils. Seven councils were chosen to participate in the 2006/07 version:

Aim

The overarching aim of the project was to provide systems and tools for councils to accelerate greenhouse gas abatement and progression towards their CCP reduction goals.

Purchasing, including products, contracts and tenders for services has enormous potential to achieve widespread sustainable outcomes for local governments across Australia. This is especially true for influencing market demand for green products and services, with local governments accounting for on average $7 billion of expenditure on materials and contracts each year (source: State of Green Procurement in Australia, 2004).

The CCP Plus Sustainable Purchasing Project was designed to equip councils with the skills and capacity to implement sustainable purchasing policies and practices to achieve not only greenhouse reductions but other social and environmental benefits through purchasing.

Framework

The 5 Milestone project framework is based on ICLEI's project design experience both in Australia and internationally, and is a proven approach that is easy for councils to understand and implement.

Project Outcomes

Through participation in the CCP Plus Sustainable Purchasing Project, councils have implemented a range of actions that have led to greenhouse abatement and other positive social and environmental outcomes. Some of these include:

Updated their purchasing system (Finance One) to enable tracking of green purchasing. This has led to a lot of internal discussion as to what is green/not green, which is great for getting staff thinking about sustainable product choice
Replacing CRT monitors with LCD's and upgrading to energy efficient hard drives
Procure recycled paper council-wide. This has led to a 70% reduction in greenhouse emissions from paper
New procurement staff receive green purchasing training, and existing staff doing refresher course
The purchasing manual has been updated to include green purchasing and successful green purchases communicated through the council newsletter
Council organised a practical demonstration of RePlas products (bollards, benches etc.) and invited maintenance and parks staff with the help of some morning tea incentives! This was a really practical way to get management and council staff to engage with and support alternative products and was a colourful and interesting demo.

For More Information

For more information on the CCP Plus Sustainable Purchasing Project, including a full set of 'off-the-shelf' project materials that council can use to implement their own comprehensive sustainable purchasing project, case studies and other project resources visit the Taking Action webpage.

Cities for Climate Protection® (CCP®) Australia: implementing greenhouse action through a collaboration between the Australian Government and ICLEI Oceania. The CCP® Australia Program is funded by the Australian Government.