Shifts Towards Sustainable Sourcing
A while ago, we shared an article on findings by the Boston Consulting Group and the World Economic Forum that showed procurement is responsible for 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions, globally. Their study reported that governments spend $11trillion(USD) annually-or 15% of global GDP, on procurement every year. Our own prior study, tracked the value of global procurement at ...
Why Is Open SPP Important In The Construction Sector?
The construction industry is estimated to account for 6% of global GDP, with Africa's construction market valued at around USD 5.4 billion in 2020 and LAC’s at USD 829.3 billion in 2018. This translates into more than 100 million jobs worldwide. However, this sector also accounted for the largest share of both global final energy use ...
Sustainable Public Procurement and Economic Development
What is it?
For many industries contracting has become a global affair. Governments are rightly keen to gain economic advantages from a global economy but need to ensure that contracting can also be used as a driver to create jobs and innovation within their own region. This use case describes the use of procurement analytics and datasets ...
Measuring Life Cycle Costing
In this article from the Sustainable Public Procurement Toolkit, we explain how you can use data to measure and monitor progress against the goal of promoting life cycle costing approaches in procurement.
What is it?
Life-cycle costing or total cost of ownership refers to the accounting practice of determining the compound cost of an asset. In the context ...
Measuring Carbon Reduction
What Is Carbon Reduction in Procurement About?
Governments and companies are setting deadlines for achieving zero emissions. Public procurement can be used as a lever to drive change by promoting lower carbon alternatives into government supply chains.
This worked example below shows how using good procurement data and combining it with emissions data, it is possible to help ...
Open Data & Measuring Progress
We believe all public procurement should be sustainable and open. Recently, with our partners Open Contracting and Public, we launched a new toolkit, to assist businesses with open data that drives sustainable public procurement implementation and measures sustainability outcomes.
Over the course of the next week, we will introduce you to the toolkit including an overview of ...
Blacklisting Needs Kid Gloves
In the UK’s House of Lords debate on procurement reform, there was some forthright questioning within the government on whether Bain and Company, who had been found to have acted illegally in South Africa, should still be engaged by the UK Government. The exchange raises the question of how the blacklisting of suppliers is intended to ...
Bain’s Woes in RSA Raises Questions in Parliament
Last week in a Lords Chamber debate, Lord Peter Hain asked why Bain & Company were still able to bid for multi-million-pound UK contracts “when the company has recently been found by a South African judicial inquiry to be guilty of unlawful complicity in corruption under former President Zuma?”
Hain is referencing the judicial commission’s findings on ...
Procurement and impact
Governments spend over 13tn USD a year with their suppliers, or around 15% of global GDP. We’ve started analysing the carbon intensity of public procurement. It is uncertain how much of our carbon is emitted through public procurement, but with a strong emphasis on infrastructure, transport, and military spending it is likely to be more than ...
Australian Pandemic PPE Contracts Cause Concern.
Much of the last two years have seen governments all over the world in a purchasing panic due to the pandemic. Understandably there has been an increase in direct award contracts, in response to the health emergency.
However, there have also been concerns over some fast-tracked, 'VIP' or other questionable procurement in some countries, and last week, ...
National Capital Authority Under Procurement Scrutiny
The National Capital Authority (NCA) was established in 1989 under the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act 1988 (PALM Act) following the introduction of self-government to the Australian Capital Territory.
The authority’s mission is ‘to shape Canberra as a capital that all Australians can be proud of by ensuring it is well planned, managed and promoted, consistent ...
Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity Begins
A group of Indo-Pacific nations has banded together to begin the process of developing an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity. This framework is intended to advance resilience, sustainability, inclusiveness, economic growth, fairness, and competitiveness amongst participating nations.
The countries taking part include the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, ...
Stormy Times For Meteorological Procurement
The UK government faces trial in the High Court over its award of an £854 million contract for a new Meteorological Office IT system, according to the Financial Times.
The court case has arisen from accusations by ATOS, the French multinational information technology service and consulting company who are suing the Meteorological Office and Department of Business ...
UK Left Waiting On Transparency
The UK’s latest procurement bill promises much, but many of the technical details remain to be defined. The drafting of the procurement bill matches many of the trailed promises featured in the consultation, but some of those promises, notably those around transparency remain undefined.
That’s not to say that they won’t be there, rather that they’re not ...
Empty Fishing Lakes.
We’ve written before about frameworks, but some improved analysis from our brilliant data team made us think it was time to revisit the issue.
Using frameworks should lead to fewer tenders and more efficiency, but if there are too many, the promised efficiency improvements never materialise and suppliers can end up bidding into a tender that has ...