Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council can help governments get up to speed on sustainable buys

Written by Michael Keating

The non-profit Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (SPLC) has more than 180 organizational members with more than $300 billion in collective purchasing power. The SPLC’s procurement membership is nearly half public procurement entities, says Sarah O’Brien, the group’s CEO. “That sets us apart from many consulting and advisory groups. We have worked closely with a diverse array of public entities for many years.”

She adds that the group includes significant public sector representation—12 U.S. states, one Canadian province and 17 cities and counties. A total of 31 universities also belong to the SLC. Those institutions of higher education include many public colleges, including the entire University of California system. The U.S. General Services Administration and U.S. Department of Energy are also members of the SPLC.

But the SPLC also works with private organizations. The group collaborates with corporations like Microsoft, Bank of America, HP and JPMorgan Chase. It also works with private universities like Harvard, MIT, University of Pennsylvania and others. “So, we understand the different pressures on public and private sector purchasers, and the strengths and weaknesses of public and private procurement models,” O’Brien explains.

The SPLC’s mission is to enable organizations to prioritize so they can maximize efficiency and impact. “We foster collaborations that provide support, guidance, and opportunities for collective action, and we recognize and validate the success of our members who are doing the important work of addressing critical sustainability issues,” O’Brien tells Co-op Solutions.

Here are a few concrete examples of the SPLC’s approach:

SPLC provides 1-to-1 coaching to support the development of strategic sustainable procurement programs.

The group has established and manages Peer Learning Circles, where members meet monthly to network and receive support and feedback on the opportunities and challenges they face.

The group has developed Action Teams to develop procurement recommendations on emerging issues or important categories of spend. “These procurement recommendations are a platform for collective action,” O’Brien adds.

SPLC offers an annual awards program. “The application for our awards is a case study, and these case studies are made available to our member community,” O’Brien says.

The group has an online member community with nearly 1,000 registered individuals from its nearly 200 member organizations. The SPLC’s online forum allows members worldwide to engage with each another in many ways—including sharing strategic goals. On the forum, members can also describe recent experiences developing a sustainable purchasing program, or they can share specifications from a recent sustainable contract solicitation. The SPLC also provides comprehensive guidance on how to develop, enhance, and implement a sustainable purchasing program. Through SPLC, members can obtain category-specific guidance for a multitude of products and services.

Governments can often use cooperative contracts for sustainable buys, the SPLC executive says. “For smaller entities such as school districts and townships, purchasing on cooperative contracts offered by their state government can provide them with opportunities to purchase more sustainable products and services without the learning curve of figuring out what to ask for by themselves.” O’Brien adds that access to these opportunities can provide smaller organizations with the confidence to start a sustainable procurement program by providing assurance that the sustainability benefits have been vetted and verified.

O’Brien believes that in general in the United States, we can expect sustainability to be a more significant feature in future cooperative contracts available to government entities. One factor is the heightened attention being paid to the impacts of public procurement. She adds that another factor is the cost savings offsets that these cooperative purchase agreements can bring to even out any price differentials for more sustainable products and services. O’Brien notes that there are several cooperative buying associations like OMNIA Partners and NASPO Valuepoint that include multiple sustainable product and service options in their portfolios.

O’Brien urges public entities to prioritize their sustainability initiatives. “Governments buy so many different types of commodities and getting started can feel overwhelming. If you have access to your overall spend data by category, figure out where you spend most of your money and begin addressing the top categories of spend. That’s likely where you have significant environmental and social impact, and where your agency’s larger spend gives you the most leverage.”

She adds that if a jurisdiction needs a quick win to show the value of its work, they should choose a category of spend that has already been well-addressed by others and that provides a way to measure the environmental, social, and/or economic benefits of the effort. “For example, you could choose to increase the recycled content of your 8.5-x-11-inch-size paper purchases and document the environmental benefits of the change via the Paper Calculator.

O’Brien suggests that governments learn from other jurisdictions that are doing great work. “Public sector entities are great to learn from because their specifications are public, and they are more open and transparent than many procurement leaders in other sectors are permitted to be!”

The SPLC offers a complete whitepaper on sustainable purchasing strategies. It is based on interviews with several the SPLC’s public-sector sustainable procurement leaders. The paper is downloadable at this site.

O’Brien predicts several sustainable procurement trends that governments will see in 2022-2023. They include:

Michael Keating is senior editor for American City & County. Contact him at [email protected].