Procurement with Purpose Newsletter No. 8 - March 28th, 2023

I was skiing in Austria last week. That was our first holiday for 4 years and skiing is usually our only annual holiday, as my wife hates flying, hot weather, biting insects…. etc. But I’m making excuses,?because of course skiing is a huge negative when it comes to environmental sustainability. All those flights, the huge piste-bashers burning diesel every night, the energy used for ski lifts, heating hotels, or shipping food half way up the mountain, destruction of wild habitats to create ski runs and more. At least Obertauern, which will probably be the resort we stick with now until we can ski no more, has its own bio-mass plant which heats virtually all the village, and the hotels are talking a lot more about the provenance of the food they serve, careful use of water and so on.?And I do lots of other good sustainability stuff personally. But we’re all hypocrites really, which is the problem the world faces. How much are we prepared to give up personally to “save the planet”??That’s the big question. Mind you, climate change may wipe out much of the skiing industry in the next couple of decades anyway!

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Being on holiday, I could not fully participate in the live World Sustainable Procurement Day (WSPD) events last week. I did join the session talking about social value in London but my connection kept dropping out so I need to go back and listen to the whole thing, along with some other material. But from my brief experience, the set-up for the day and the platform looked very good, there were about 200 people participating in that session which seemed pretty impressive, and the content / speakers were interesting (even if I probably disagree with one of the central approaches that was being discussed – more on that to come!) So very well done to the Sustainable Procurement Pledge folk and their partners who made it all happen. But given all that content and insight was provided free of charge, I do wonder who would pay ￡895 for next month’s CIPS Sustainable Procurement Summit (in partnership with SPP).?Instead, you could go back and listen to all the WSPD stuff here shortly and declare a cost-avoidance saving...

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This is exciting! ?The US Government announced that “the Biden-Harris Administration is launching the Presidential Federal Sustainability Awards Program.?Through this annual awards program, we will celebrate the extraordinary leadership, innovation, and achievement of Federal agencies and their employees in making progress on implementation of Executive Order 14057 and the Federal Sustainability Plan. Agencies may nominate federal programs, projects, project teams, facilities, and individuals for an award through May 19, 2023 …. To learn more about the awards program, see award categories, and submit a nomination, visit?https://www.sustainability.gov/awards.html”.

Perhaps we need a major political figure in the UK to set up a similar scheme – how about someone like Jacob Rees-Mogg? We know from his brief time as Minister for Procurement how much he loves social value and all the good “procurement with purpose” work in government!

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Henry Dimbleby was the UK government’s “healthy food czar”, appointed to write a national food strategy. ?He resigned last week because the government has ignored pretty much all his recommendations. He was also the founder of fast food chain Leon, which positions itself as a healthy alternative to competitors (although a cynic might point out it sells some pretty “unhealthy” stuff too). His new book “Ravenous” is out now, in which he gives his ideas as to why and how the UK population has become so fat, and what can be done about it (putting it bluntly). He puts a lot of blame onto food manufacturers, who have persuaded us to eat more and more ultra-processed foods, which are not terribly good for us. I haven’t read it yet, but the range of reviews is already interesting.

Some have been very positive, but it was interesting to read an alternative view from Christopher Snowdon on The Critic magazine website. The Critic is a monthly magazine with a somewhat conservative, contrarian viewpoint, and Snowdon is against state intervention in areas such as smoking and heathy eating, but he makes some good points in criticising the book. (It’s always worth looking at both sides of the argument, whatever your starting point). Dimbleby for example “wants the countryside to be centrally planned with every inch of land monitored and controlled by Whitehall”. ?Snowdon is not sure this is such a great idea and I tend to agree.

But what does this mean for food and drink, catering, leisure or restaurant businesses and the procurement professionals within them??Obviously, future legislation might be an influence, but there is little sign of that under the UK conservative government, although the situation varies by country. So at the moment, value may well come from making products “healthier”- whilst taking care not to lose your consumer along the way.

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In this week’s longer article on the Procurement with Purpose website, I look at three terms used in the sustainability world. You will have heard of greenwashing I suspect, but what about “greenhushing” (which I have come across a few times in the last year or so) and “greenrinsing”, which I admit was a new one for me.

Greenhushing applies when organisations simply don’t talk about their sustainability performance, particularly in areas such as emissions. That may be because they don’t have a good story to tell – or because they are afraid of reaction, even if actually they are doing some good stuff. Greenrinsing is the subtle art of changing your sustainability targets when you realise you aren’t going to hit the original numbers – clever, but not to be admired really in most cases! Read more here anyway for a fuller discussion

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Those who practice greenhushing are really saying that Silence is Golden… which reminds me of one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded.?So instead of a new music recommendation this week, let’s wallow in some classic 60s nostalgia with the Tremeloes ?- but if you watch it on this link, do try to ignore the VERY dodgy key change at 2:00. Also, you can tell it is live, as the singer totally fails to hit his first note in the new key… still a great song though.