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Green Procurement

Meeting Policy Requirements

  1. Has the department incorporated environmental performance considerations in its procurement decision-making processes? In progress.

    Statistics Canada, with input from Public Works and Government Services Canada and subject-matter experts, will develop an action plan.

    To continually improve and maintain existing initiatives, we will evidently need to combine the expertise of commodity managers, contracting officers, project authorities / program managers and users.

  2. Summary of initiatives to incorporate environmental performance considerations in procurement decision-making processes

    Examples of elements that are being considered in the development of the action plan and in Statistics Canada targets to achieve the environmental improvement:

    • Reducing consumption and rethinking purchases to ensure that the volume requested is really the volume required.
    • Altering specification/contract terms to detail measures or product attributes that will reduce the environmental impact of purchased items during use.
    • Seeking alternative goods or raw materials (always based on a cost–benefit analysis).
    • Incorporating environmental criteria into supplier selection processes.
    • Incorporating environmental design issues into specifications.
    • Including environmental clauses in conditions of contract.
    • Including environmental performance criteria in contract monitoring requirements.
    • Reducing energy resources consumption.
    • Reducing greenhouse gas and other air-polluting emissions.
    • Checking environmental performance of the vehicle fleet.
    • ‘Greening’ the 2011 Census office supplies.
    • Reducing the carbon footprint, by streamlining shipping activities.
    • Increasing the potential to acquire environmentally preferable goods and services that reflect value for money by rethinking, for example, service versus product, making versus buying, and new versus used, and by combining or standardizing requirements across multiple users.
    • Eliminating hazardous material content and other environmentally unfriendly substances and practices.
    • Reducing consumption of goods and services, energy, natural resources, etc.
    • Re-using packaging, existing equipment, etc.
    • Recycling paper, glass, metals, plastic, fluids, etc.
    • Minimizing quantity of disposed materials and diverting from landfills through resale or donation.
    • Finding alternatives. For example, finding an alternative for hazardous materials has a significant cost benefit: hazardous materials disposal costs are high and employees also require costly regular training to legally handle them.

  3. Results achieved

    The following four high-impact goods and services have been targeted in our action plan:

    • Greening the purchase of office supplies.
    • Purchasing recycled printer paper.
    • Returning packing materials to suppliers (i.e., in Request for Volume Discount (RVD) processes).
    • Sharing and disseminating documents via electronic scanning to reduce consumption of printer paper.

  4. Contributions to facilitate government-wide implementation of green procurement

    • Green Procurement Training and Reporting: The Government of Canada-wide green procurement training materials have been updated to reflect the requirements of the policy. The majority of the Statistics Canada procurement staff has taken this course over the past 12 months.

Green Procurement Targets

  1. Has the department established green procurement targets? In progress.

    Quantifiable measures: Statistics Canada, with input from Public Works and Government Services Canada, will need to develop performance measures. Environmental improvements must be measured in a quantifiable way. Quantifiable measures should be attainable, realistic and should take into account operational requirements and available tools and resources. Action plan and targets were established in April 2009 for fiscal year 2009/2010 (baseline year).

  2. Are these green procurement targets the same as those identified in your Sustainable Development Strategy? Not applicable.

  3. Summary of green procurement targets

    • Green procurement training: The Government of Canada-wide green procurement training materials have been updated to reflect the requirements of the policy. The majority of the Statistics Canada procurement staff has taken this course over the past 12 months.
    • Green procurement reporting: The policy requires that deputy heads monitor and report annually on green procurement performance through the Report on Plans and Priorities.

  4. Results achieved

    • Greening the purchase of office supplies
    • Purchasing of recycled printer paper ($478,000 in 2008/2009)
    • Returning packing materials to suppliers (i.e., in Request for Volume Discount (RVD) processes).

Our existing Automated Materiel Management Information System does not allow us to capture the green procurements at this time. We are developing changes to our system for future reporting requests. In progress.