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How you can support us to procure goods and services more sustainably
26 February 2020
The TOPS Procurement Project team have been collaborating with colleagues across UCL, and with our primary suppliers, to identify opportunities to reduce our spend and improve our processes.
As part of this, we have been listening to what responsible procurement means to you. By working closely with our colleagues in Sustainable UCL we have started to identify how we can procure things in a way that is good for people and the planet – by taking into account the environmental, social and financial impacts of our decisions.
Where could we be better?
Across the college we know we could improve the reuse and recycling of many items such as laptops and mobile phones. We have a huge number of suppliers all making deliveries for items that we could streamline. For example, we average over 300 stationery deliveries a week.
UCL also makes a significant carbon impact through things like:
- Printing – annually we use the equivalent of 370 trees worth of paper
- Catering – annually we could reduce hospitality catering emissions by up to 40% if we went fully vegetarian for all events and meetings.
There is an opportunity for all us all to think about our own practices – how often we print, the choices we make when booking catering and if we could reuse and recycle more.
However, in this climate emergency we are hearing that travel is your biggest concern. National and international travel costs UCL over £20 million a year and was the 3rd largest source of carbon emissions (CO2e) for the university, over 39,000 tonnes of CO2. The biggest contributors being:
- Flights = 33,560 Tonnes CO2e
- Trains = 647 Tonnes CO2e
- Taxis = 385 Tonnes CO2e
What can we do now?
Since switching from Ian Allen Travel in July 2018 we have seen almost double the bookings and spend going through Key Travel, demonstrating its usability. This uptake has allowed us to start conversations with Key Travel regarding sustainability initiatives.
Whilst this is a positive move, there are still actions we can all take to reduce our impact. Before booking travel ask yourself the following questions:
- Review – Do you need to travel?
- Remote access – Can you remotely join a meeting or conference?
- Reroute – If you have to travel, what is the most sustainable way to get there?
The Procurement team will be contacting Faculties and departments over the coming months to support them in their responsible procurement initiatives. In the meantime, you can visit the Sustainable UCL site for more tips and inspirational stories from colleagues who have already reduced their travel impact.