Sustainable procurement brings benefits for both North Ayrshire Council and the wider world. It considers the impact of environmental, economic, and social factors along with price and quality.
The Corporate Procurement Unit (CPU) needs to ensure practices undertaken are sustainable and ethical.
Sustainable
The CPU must consider socio-economic and environmental factors for all procurement exercises by using the Scottish Government Sustainable Procurement Tools. Areas to consider include:
- reducing environmental impact by reducing emissions and waste to landfill
- encouraging fair work practices and payment of the Real Living Wage
Ethical
The CPU must be aware and lookout for signs of unacceptable practices in the supply chain such as:
- fraud
- corruption
- modern-day slavery
- human trafficking
- child labour
Modern Slavery
The council are one of the 83 councils who have signed up to the Co-operative Party Charter against modern slavery and are leading the way to ensure exploitation has no place in our supply chains.
North Ayrshire Council has committed to:
- training all procurement staff on modern slavery
- challenging any abnormally low tenders to ensure the low cost is not as a result of exploitive labour
- highlighting the fact that all suppliers/contractors' workers are free to join trade unions and have a voice
- reviewing spending to identify potential issues and refer any identified risk to the relevant agencies (National Crime Agency)
- publicising a whistleblowing system both for our staff and suppliers/contractors' staff to enable reporting of suspected incidences of modern slavery
Report suspected instances of Modern Slavery.