The annual Local Government Procurement Conference has identified several key issues for the council procurement sector to focus on in the year ahead, including the importance of socially and environmentally conscious procurement practices.
The conference explored a variety of topics, including circular economy, procurement strategies, collaboration and relationship management and modern slavery.
Key insights presented included:
Navigating the circular economy
Dr Hadi Rezaei Vandchali, LGP’s ESG and Procurement Services Consultant, presented on Navigating the Circular Economy.
During his presentation, Dr Rezaei Vandchali said that promoting circular economy initiatives is an essential step in getting organisations to embrace sustainability and ESG principles in waste management and resource utilisation.
In this context, procurement plays a pivotal role, serving as a key strategic lever for organisations to drive circularity throughout their supply chains.
Without the direct involvement of procurement departments in circular economy initiatives, reaching sustainability targets is unlikely. Their critical role in selecting sustainable materials, fostering innovation, and facilitating internal and external collaborations makes them essential for integrating circular economy principles across organisational practices and achieving broader sustainability goals.
Effective procurement strategies
Coretta Bessi, a Director on LGP’s Board, showed conference attendees how to develop a procurement strategy. Ms Bessi shared a range of useful models and tools to use when developing a strategy including the McKinsey 7S model, STEEPLED and SWOT.
The McKinsey 7S Model is a framework that analyses a company’s organisational design. The goal of the framework is to depict how effectiveness can be achieved in an organisation through the interactions of seven key elements – structure, strategy, skill, system, shared values, style and staff.
STEEPLED is a strategic planning methodology that can be used across all business functions to discover, evaluate, organise, and track external risk. It stands for social, technological, economic, environmental, political, legislative, ethical, and demographic.
SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This model outlines the analysis of these four factors, through which procurement professionals can gain valuable insights into the internal and external forces that could impact the procurement process.
Modern slavery
On day two of the conference, attendees heard from Moe Turaga who has lived experience of modern slavery. Through telling his story, Mr Turaga brought a very human element to the issue of modern slavery and highlighted the importance of effectively finding and dealing with modern slavery in supply chains.
Modern slavery refers to when an individual is exploited by others, for personal or commercial gain. Often occurring due to financial manipulation, modern slavery results in a loss of freedom and what is effectively forced labour.
LGP has said that as a spender of public monies, councils have an ethical obligation to consider, identify and manage modern slavery risks within their supply chains.
Undertaking activities that identify and manage modern slavery risks, with the aim of eliminating its occurrence, has many benefits. Apart from ethical responsibilities, benefits include:
- Reputational enhancement
- Transparency (in supply chains)
- Value for money
LGP’s Sustainable Choice team has developed a range of tools and services to assist procurement managers to reduce the risk of modern slavery in their supply chains, including a toolkit and risk assessment services.
