Here at YPO, we truly believe in the positive impact good procurement can have on the world, and the huge benefits it can have on our customers, suppliers and our communities. As well as compliance, value for money and good quality, public sector procurement, now more than ever, needs to be sustainable.
For many years now, we’ve been on a sustainability journey to help add value to our customers and suppliers. Since 2015, we’ve been working with our supply chain to collect information on the amount of social value being generated. We’re also a CIPS Knowledge Partner specialising social value.
More recently, we created a brand-new role to take us further on our sustainability and social value journey. Melissa Bell has been appointed as our Sustainable Procurement Manager. With almost 15 years’ of hands on procurement experience at YPO, Melissa now has a new focus.
Melissa said: “I’m really excited about this new role and the challenges that lay ahead. Like a lot of organisations YPO has played around the edges of social value and sustainability, focusing on environmental issues like recycled products. This is obviously something that we need to continue and develop further, however there’s so much more that we can do. Both as a business/employer and as a collaborator through our products and services that we offer to customers.”
Continuing our journey, we’re starting to baseline our activities and the activities of our supply base. Without doing this crucial step we don’t know what we can already shout about and celebrate. It will also help us measure our success and impact later down the line.
We’ve also made a commitment to embed the UN Sustainable Development Goals into all our procurements.
Melissa said: “The Sustainable Development Goals will really help us to drive social value into everything we do and deliver real benefits to local communities. However, it is no easy task embedding all 17 goals into our procurements – I’ve got a lot of work to do!
“Social value is still an emerging concept for some of our suppliers and we’re committed to supporting them on their own sustainability journeys. We want to be at the heart of the debate when it comes to sustainability and social value. We’re by no means an expert, but we’re ready to start conversations and take as many customers and suppliers on this exciting journey with us.”
Learn more about Melissa in our latest blog.
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