Charting a Path to Leadership: The Journey of Three Sustainable Purchasing Programs
Come hear sustainable purchasing leaders from a city, a manufacturer, and a university share how they have taken their organization’s sustainable purchasing efforts to the next level by strategically engaging internal stakeholders. Starting at different levels of maturity and coming from different sectors, these case studies will draw out some of the common challenges that sustainable purchasing leaders face in all contexts, as well as the creative adaptation to specific organizational contexts that unlocks the buy-in organizations need to realize their leadership potential.
Over the past 15 years the City of Portland’s Sustainable Procurement Program has gone through a few different phases, from structured to opportunistic, and is now embarking on a more strategic approach. This session will explore the City’s 2017 strategic planning process and results from the City’s 2018 participation in SPLC’s BENCHMARK program.
Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) will outline its evolving approach to developing a sustainable purchasing program that fulfills MIT’s mission and drives positive social and environmental impacts. Grounded in findings from the SPLC Guidance for Leadership in Sustainable Purchasing, the MIT approach is convening a cross-functional, materials management working group that integrates knowledge and practice from procurement through waste. MIT is seeking to base its sustainable purchasing program in data that directly informs decisions. The presentation will cover how MIT has leveraged its research expertise to form an operations and research partnership among procurement staff, MIT research scientists, and students to generate a baseline materials flow analysis and sustainability spend analysis. Drawing on findings from an SPLC BENCHMARK workshop, the presentation will review current process challenges and opportunities, emerging pilot projects and next steps.
Sonoco, a global manufacturer of packaging and plastics products, used SPLC’s Maturity Model and BENCHMARK program to engage internal stakeholders in inventorying the company’s sustainable purchasing activities. The learnings from that process have set the course for Sonoco’s “next generation” sustainable purchasing program.