IntegrAtIng enVIrOn- MentAL And SOCIAL

Handbook for tHe Inter-amerIcan network on Government Procurement – 31 portation, and nutrition. In these circumstances, spending more on ‘expensive greener alternatives’ can be perceived to be an unnecessary luxury. Procurers can however employ a number of strategies to reduce the purchasing costs of sustainable alternatives: • Buying in bulk: aggregating demand of several procurement agencies can help increase the volume of demand and hence enable the negotiation of volume discounts; • Establishing central procurement platforms that will continuously negotiate volume discounts, and stock with delivery to public entities on requisition; • Establishing framework agree- ments under which guaranteed demand can be associated with discounted prices; • Providing suppliers with lead- time: informing suppliers that future tenders will include environmental and social criteria. formal and facilitated consul tation with suppliers is also instructive for suppliers to understand the expectations around SPP and for policymakers and procurers to appreciate the challenges in scaling up environ- mental and social performance; exAMPLe: hOw tO IntegrAte enVIrOnMentAL And SOCIAL PerfOrMAnCe IntO the PrOCureMent Of textILe PrOduCtS Pre-qualiication criteria: Pre-qualiication of suppliers is typically based on evidence of sound corporate governance, legal and contractual compliance and inancial stability. Integrating social and environmental factors into pre-qualiication should therefore require evidence of corporate commitment to the principles and practices of sustainability. for example, pre-qualiication criteria could include evidence of: • Commitment to broad principles or codes of conduct on sustainable development; • An active corporate social responsibility programme and public reporting on the same; • Certiication on ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems; • Implementation of ISO 26000 Social Responsibility guidance standard. Contract conditions: this should include environmental and social performance that is directly related to the design, manufacture and delivery of the product or service being procured. In the procurement of textile products contract conditions could refer to: • Avoiding the use of heavy metals in the manufacture of yarns and the weaving, dyeing and production of textiles; • Active engagement with suppliers on the abolition of child labour and forced labour and the conditions under which youth labour is used; • Evidence on following ILO core labour standards on wages, occupational health and safety, working hours and overtime in own facilities and in the irst and second tiers of the supply chain. Technical speciications: Procurers need to ensure that when including environmental and social performance in technical speciications, these aspects should be directly relevant to the performance andor functionality of the product being procured. at the onset of SPP, it is best to include sustainability requirements as optional criteria and award signiicant scores on their performance. In the production of textiles, optional criteria could be the reduced use of chlorine and phthalates. these criteria should be introduced as optional as suppliers have to undertake upgrades on production processes to remove these substances and also pass down this requirement through the supply chains. as such, these changes require lead-time. as SPP gets underway, the optional criteria can be made mandatory. In tandem, higher performance requirements can be introduced as optional criteria. for example, while the avoidance of chlorine and phthalates are being made mandatory, the supply of organic ibres can be made optional. Extensive guidance on the environmental and social characteristics on major areas of spend are provided in Section 4.