London, England Fire Brigade Green Procurement Policy

Type: Policy

Status: Adopted

Source File: http://www.london-fire.gov.uk/about_us/green_procurement.asp

Text:

From winning the prestigious overall award at City of London Corporation’s Sustainable City Awards 2007, to fitting out fire stations with solar panels and replacing the fleet with less polluting vehicles.

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) now has sustainability at the very heart of its agenda.

We are committed to achieving environmental, social and economic objectives set out in our Procurement Strategy, so as to ensure a better quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to come.

We recognise the impacts associated with our own procurement activities as well as those of our suppliers. We are committed to addressing these impacts and integrating environmental, social and economic considerations into every stage of its procurement processes.

The aim of this policy is to provide a strategic framework for setting targets and actions to achieve the following goals:

• meet LFEPA’s corporate objectives

• minimise environmental risk

• maximise social benefits

• consider whole life costing

• consult and engage stakeholders

To achieve these goals we commit to the following objectives:

• To, as a minimum, comply with all relevant environmental and social legislation, UK and EC procurement regulations, industry guidance, codes of practice and voluntary agreements.

• To research and promote best practice in environmental and social procurement.

• To consider environmental and social issues during vendor qualification and appraisal.

• To specify environmentally and socially acceptable products, services and ways of working in contract conditions and specifications.

• To include environmental and social appraisal criteria during tender evaluation.

• To green the supply chain and address social procurement issues through working with key suppliers.

• To minimise the environmental impacts of our contracts including the production of waste, use of resources, emissions to air, releases to water, contamination of land and destruction of biodiversity.

• To promote awareness of environmental and social procurement issues among suppliers, members, LFEPA staff, the public and other stakeholders.

• To adopt mechanisms and indicators for improving, monitoring and reviewing the environmental and social performance of our suppliers.

• To work with SME’s, BME and local businesses so they are fit to compete for LFEPA contracts so as to strengthen the local London economy.