Procurement with Purpose Newsletter no. 58 – March 19th, 2024

Spring is springing with the equinox this week, and grandson was one month old on Saturday.? I’m still swinging between worrying about what sort of planet he will inherit and whether he will be called up to serve in World War III in 2044, and delight in seeing a new life develop. Changed my first nappy for 32 years on Saturday, which was fun.? Perhaps he will develop the “thing” that will save the world?? Or I’d settle for the winning goal at the 2046 World Cup.

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It’s that time of year again…

I’ve just realised I haven’t registered for World Sustainable Procurement Day which is Thursday this week (21st March).? OK, done it now. ?Organised by the lovely people at the Sustainable Procurement Pledge, it is a full global day (actually 11pm on the 20th to 11pm on the 21st in UK time) packed with free events, discussions, and presentations covering all things sustainable procurement.?

The agenda is far too full to go through here, but it covers pretty much every topic you could imagine (net zero, human rights, biodiversity, water, social value / enterprises and more) and a few you might not expect. AI pops up of course, private and public procurement is covered (I’m impressed that Gareth Rhys Williams, the UK government’s Chief Commercial Officer is presenting) and speakers are a good mix of practitioners (the majority) along with folk representing charities, NGOs, and a few service providers in the space.

I’ll certainly be tuned in during the morning, and will catch up with other sessions later. ?Do take a look if you haven’t already.

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What on earth is Beyond Value Chain Mitigation (BVCM)?

I promised last week that I would look into the concept of? BVCM (Beyond Value Chain Mitigation) ?which is a new acronym for most of us. It comes courtesy of the Science-Based Targets initiative.

Putting it simply, it refers to activities organisations undertake that have an impact on decarbonisation but are not directly related to their own supply and value chains. So it would not include working with your own suppliers or direct supply chain to move to EVs, or buy less carbon intensive products. ?However, established practices such as buying carbon credits as offsetting tools are in effect a subset of BVCM. In fact, I suspect the new terminology and concept has been developed in part to address the way carbon credits and many offset programmes have become somewhat discredited in recent years. From the report;

“The SBTi recommends that companies also deliver beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM) to accelerate global progress towards net-zero by supporting other economic and social actors to reduce and/or remove GHG emissions and by taking responsibility for their unabated emissions that contribute to climate change. BVCM activities and investments are not accounted for in the company’s scope 1, 2 or 3 GHG inventory and therefore do not count towards achieving value-chain emission reduction targets. Efforts to deliver BVCM must not replace or delay corporate value chain decarbonization in line with a 1.5°C pathway – instead, BVCM is a mechanism by which

companies go above and beyond value chain abatement”.

The SBTI people are not presenting this as a fully thought-out programme, but rather are suggesting the concept of BVCM as a way forward, one that does require more thought and effort. For instance, should there be some sort of accreditation so investors can see that a BVCM initiative is genuine and worthwhile. But the reports do identify some issues – not least that the greater concerns about greenwashing mean that firms are cautious now about initiatives that might be perceived in that way.? I’m sure we will come back to this but if you’re working in the sustainability field, you should take a look at the reports here and here.

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Gimme more gas…

I wrote last week about the 2030 green energy targets that both the Labour Party (100% green energy) and the Conservative Party (95%) have put on place.? It seems unlikely that either target will be achieved given the lack of a convincing nuclear energy programme and the variability of supply from wind and solar.

The day the newsletter was published, Claire Coutinho, the UK’s energy security minister, announced plans to replace or refurbish existing UK gas-fired power stations, many of which are scheduled for retirement. That is necessary to secure energy supply whilst we transition to green energy, she explained. The announcement says, “the government has committed to support the building of new gas power stations to maintain a safe and reliable energy source for days when the weather forecast doesn’t power up renewables”.

Apart from the fact that this demonstrates a worrying level of illiteracy in government comms (the “weather forecast” does not “power up” anything), ?it’s hard to criticise that decision, given the importance of energy supply to all of us. ?As someone who did homework by candle light from time to time in the 1970s when power cuts were not unusual, I support that concept! ?There were also some technical changes to how the wholesale markets work announced which may reduce domestic bills slightly, plus a certain amount of hopeful comment on the future around carbon capture and hydrogen. But there is no doubt that Putin has concentrated minds somewhat on energy resilience.

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Has the UK really led the way in de-carbonisation?

There was also a rather odd editorial in The Times last week, headed “Green Overachievement” (behind the paywall) hailing the fact that the UK has done so well in terms of decarbonisation. Emissions were down 6% in 2023 (mainly because of warmer weather actually), and “This follows the government’s announcement last month that the UK has become the world’s first major economy to halve its carbon emissions in the period since 1990”.?

Now there are some genuinely positive elements to the story. The UK has introduced an impressive amount of renewable power generation, particularly wind, in the last decade or so, and the growth of EVs although slowing now has also been generally positive (although even that is a complicated issue when you look at the embedded carbon in the vehicles).

But I’m a Times subscriber, so I get to see the “comments” in the digital issue, and the editorial drew immediate response from dozens of readers, most of whom were not happy. The way we have “exported” our emissions over the last 30 years was the main bone of contention. This comment ?from Richard Burnett-Hall probably best sums up the discussion.

“We may have been successful at reducing national GHG emissions from buildings and domestic transport to such an extent that the statistical consequences of offshoring most of our manufacturing industry has been only a subsidiary reason for our emissions reductions record in the past couple of decades, but the fact remains that the British people are indeed responsible for all related manufacturing and transport emissions from imported products. This article exemplifies the complacency of an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude, due entirely to our failure to include those emissions in our national statistics, which discourages any efforts on our part to minimise them”.

Another paradox is shown by considering the recent closure of the Tata Steel plant in Port Talbot. This means a 1.5% reduction in UK emissions, and in five years there will be a new “greener”? electric-powered furnace in its place. Good news? Well, not if you have lost your job now, and of course we will be importing steel in place of the lost production in the interim period, probably from China, a country which has built hundreds of new coal-fired power stations this year alone.

We’ve also featured the Drax power station here many times, which burns wood imported from North America. But we don’t count the emissions linked to the production of wood pellets or the transportation or even the burning of the wood in the UK figures astonishingly. As the BBC said,?“…the power station emits about 12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, but under international rules the UK doesn't have to count these emissions.”

So, we should celebrate the positives of what the UK has achieved, but let’s not get too excited…

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RIP Karl Wallinger

Another RIP, aged just 66 – Karl Wallinger, a very talented, classically trained multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who was in the Waterboys then formed World Party. I have several of their CDs and they are best known for the excellent Put the Message in the Box - but generally are very underrated.?

She’s the One was on their Egyptology album, then became a number 1 hit for Robbie Williams. It wasn’t mentioned much at the time that it was a cover, and Williams even occasionally claimed he had written it. He didn’t.? Wallinger didn’t even know Williams was releasing it. ?“When the song became a hit, and after having experienced a near-fatal brain aneurysm around the time of the song's release, Wallinger stated that he experienced "ongoing bitterness", going on to say that "the song had a much better time than me, popping off to the Brits while I was at home eating crackers dipped in water".

All a bit sad, although the royalties helped during Wallinger’s period of serious health issues. Condolences to family and friends, and here’s a slightly less well known but also excellent song from World Party. ?