Councils and health authorities in England, with a massive annual £58bn of spending power, have pledged to make the way they buy goods and services and run their premises more sustainable.

The organisations were responding to the independent Sustainable Procurement Task Force report, Procuring the Future, which aims to make the UK a leader in the European Union on sustainable procurement by 2009.

Local government (accounting for some £40 billion of procurement per year) and the health and social care sector (£18 billion of procurement) have published their own responses following consultation carried out within both sectors.

Central to the responses published today (30 November) is a commitment to mainstreaming sustainable procurement into organisational thinking, strategy and practice. In this way, the responses aim to optimise social, economic and environmental benefits from the billions of pounds local government and the health sector spend each year on buying goods and services.
 

The joint launch today of the two responses reinforces the strong links between local government and health communities in delivering key public services like health and social care.

Click on the links below for the relevant reports:

Procuring the Future

The UK Government Sustainable Procurement Action Plan

The Local Government Sustainable Procurement Strategy