Procurement and Supplier Engagement - Best Practice

Message to Students, Staff and Local Suppliers

Procurement, and increasingly sustainable procurement, are key areas of change at Charles Sturt University. This is becoming a key mechanism for policy delivery and cost reduction. Institutions spend millions of dollars each year undertaking capital projects and buying goods and services. Increasingly, Charles Sturt University is making spending decisions and adopting procurement policies through a sustainable lens.

Like Charles Sturt University, many institutions are leading the way in protecting biodiversity and using natural resources efficiently, with minimal waste. Our spending decisions are an important instrument in tackling climate change both by reducing carbon emissions and ensuring that buildings and infrastructure are resilient to changes in our climate.

• See the Sustainability at Charles Sturt Procurement and Supplier Engagement sheet [PDF 384KB]

Importance of Sustainability in Procurement and Supplier Engagement

Sustainable procurement and supplier engagement both directly and indirectly influence a number of key environmental and societal areas. When institutions collaborate on sustainable procurement choices, we have the power to bring about major local and international environmental and social advances, such as:

• Achieving direct environmental benefits and health goals
• Helping to drive the market for sustainable and socially responsible products and services
• Demonstrating real leadership by setting examples for corporate and private consumers.

Reasons for committing to and investing in sustainable procurement:

• Reduce long-term energy consumption by using whole-life costing, which highlights products with a low capital cost that are expensive to run
• Anticipate future regulations
• Avoid costly disposal of products at the end of their life
• Avoid rising costs
• Change public perception and awareness of climate change.

Champions

Progress Toward Best Practice

This framework was benchmarked in 2016. The below graph illustrates our progress towards best practice across the five (5) activity areas.  The green bars reaching four (4) highlight best practice and the lower bars in blue indicate Charles Sturt University’s current ratings.