Procurement and Supply Chain - Oakdene Hollins

WR1403: Business Waste Prevention Evidence Review
L2m4-3: Procurement & Supply Chain
‘PFI’ or ‘design and build’) and the requirement to achieve ‘BREEAM Very Good’ certification a , contractors
in practice had little or no incentive to minimise waste (15).
Some examples of procurement driving waste minimisation are seen in other sectors:
The Danwood Group is an independent supplier of office solutions such as printing, faxing and
copying. As part of the Envirowise-funded Supply Chain Partnership Forum and as a supplier to
Forum host organisation Manchester United Football Club, Danwood was visited by an independent
Envirowise advisor. They estimated that eliminating or reducing plastic and cardboard packaging
Danwood could save more than £9,300 (16).
Norm Thompson Outfitters in Oregon, USA was “successful at engaging its suppliers to reduce
packaging” (17 p. 15). Influencing vendors to “reduce underpacking of ‘Save Your Back’ bags
[designed to reduce muscle strain]” resulted in annual savings of US$2,900 (17 p. 12).
By working with a toy supplier to reduce packaging on 255 products, US retailer Wal-Mart saved
“$2.4 million a year in shipping costs, as well as 3,800 trees and 1,000 barrels of oil” (18 p. 6).
In New Zealand, major retailer The Warehouse “actively encourages waste elimination through its
supply chain”. For example, packaging associated with men’s shirts was reduced saving “around 4
tonnes of waste plastic per year” (19 p. 20).
One area which has received some attention is the adoption of environmental management systems
and other standards as a result of procurement pressure. A 2008 survey found that almost threequarters
of UK manufacturers now have an EMS in place (20). Purchaser power is frequently cited
as a significant, if not overriding, explanation for the adoption of standards by suppliers (e.g. (4 p.
37) (2 p. 25)). This may, however, depend on the particular industrial sector, form of accreditation
or size of supplier company. For example, ISO 14001 is widespread in the German automotive
industry because suppliers need to demonstrate their accreditation, but an alternative standard
(EMAS) is rarely required or adopted, perhaps as its validity is restricted to Europe (21 p. 23). Please
refer to report module L2m4-1: Standards for more evidence of waste prevention through the
adoption of standards by businesses.
Procurement pressure has also driven the donation of surplus food to charitable organisations. b
FareShare is a national charity working with leading UK retailers, food manufacturers and hospitality
businesses to redistribute food. It reports that many manufacturers were prompted to participate
by their food retailer customers who wrote to suppliers encouraging them to work with FareShare
and to authorise the redistribution of their own-brand products to FareShare. Overall, the tonnages
diverted through FareShare are still relatively small at around 3,000 tonnes in 2009-10, although this
equates to some 6.7 million meals. c
The following Boxes give details of the Danwood/MUFC, Norm Thompson and FareShare examples, and
Table 1 summarises evidence for waste minimisation driven by procurement.
a BREEAM (bre Environmental Assessment Method) is the leading and most widely used environmental assessment method for buildings. It sets the standard
for best practice in sustainable design and has become the de facto measure used to describe a building's environmental performance’ (105)
b This is a rather different form of waste minimisation, but is nevertheless regarded as waste prevention rather than landfill diversion because the product is
used for its intended purpose (i.e. human consumption).
c Fare Share’s Marketing & Communications Manager, personal communication, January 2011
6 For Defra