Question reference: S6W-05786
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 21 January 2022
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Current status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 31 January 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what mechanisms it is putting in place to ensure the robustness of public sector procurement in terms of the purchase of low-carbon, circular economy products and services.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to using public procurement to address the Climate Emergency. This work is framed in terms of the Sustainable Procurement Duty of the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, which requires public bodies to consider how they can improve the environmental, as well as social and economic, wellbeing of the authority’s area, and act in a way to secure improvements identified. Public bodies routinely report on the environmental benefits generated through their procurement activity in their Annual Procurement Reports.
In response to the Climate Emergency the Scottish Government established the Climate and Procurement Forum with representative bodies of key sectors, to provide leadership and direction to enable traction on climate change.
Examples of actions leading from the Forum include publishing a procurement policy note to clarify expectations with respect to climate and circular economy considerations; Ministers writing to local leaders stressing their role in enabling sustainable outcomes through procurement, and producing Climate Literacy eLearning to assist public bodies to take account of climate and circular economy through procurement. To support environmentally-friendly buying options, our national frameworks are available to the wider public sector and charities, for example our Non Domestic Energy Efficiency Frameworks supports the transition to a low carbon economy across sectors. Additionally, we host the latest current guidance on training on the Sustainable Procurement Tools platform.