Seminal sustainable purchasing leadership conference

            What: 2014 Annual Meeting of the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council

·         Theme: Share expertise. Find solutions. Build relationships. Shape the future.

·         When: Tuesday, May 20 – Wednesday, May 21

·         Where: Washington Convention Center, Washington DC

·         Registration: https://www.purchasingcouncil.org/meeting  Early bird ends April 11.

Who Should Attend: Those in the private, public and nonprofit sectors working to advance sustainability in the multi-trillion dollar institutional purchasing marketplace (buyers and suppliers). Past SPLC events have attracted senior leaders in procurement and supply chain, sustainability, marketing and business development, policy, standards and certifications, consulting, and public interest advocacy.

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More information: Last summer, leaders from government, industry, academia, standards organizations and NGOs came together to launch the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council with the goal of creating a shared guidance, benchmarking and recognition program for institutional leadership in sustainable purchasing.  By providing institutional purchasers with the type of clarity that the US Green Building Council gave to designers and builders, the Council hopes to finally unleash sustainable institutional purchasing at a scale that can truly transform our global economy with the kind of speed and breadth we need.

In just six months, a large number of influential organizations – who collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars on goods and services annually – have joined the Council.  See full list here.  These include higher education institutions, such as American, Arizona State, Emory, Michigan State, Portland Community College, Portland State University, UPenn, and UT Austin.

The Council’s inaugural Annual Meeting in May will be a seminal event because every workshop is designed to document best practices, case studies, existing guidance, tools and metrics that are currently in use by those exercising leadership in sustainable purchasing.  Because this will be a multi-sector and multi-stakeholder meeting, this will allow participants in higher education to learn about cutting edge work happening in government, the corporate sector, the non-profit sector and globally.  The output of each workshop will be used over the following months by expert panels, called Technical Advisory Groups, to inform the development of a pilot-ready first draft of the Council’s leadership guidance, benchmarking and recognition program for sustainable purchasing.  For more information about why the Annual Meeting will be a unique event, watch the brief video titled Not Your Typical Conference.

Planned workshops include:

  • Winning Support for Sustainable Purchasing Programs
  • Spend Analysis: Identifying Social, Economic and Environmental Impacts & Risks
  • Supplier Engagement: Surveying, Evaluating, Collaborating and Supporting
  • Requests for Transparency and Disclosure: What Makes Sense?
  • Changing Purchasing Behavior
  • Sustainable Purchaser Training and Credentialing
  • Measuring Success: Choosing Metrics and Setting Goals
  • Making Sustainability Part of the Bid Award Decision
  • Selecting Labels, Standards & Certifications for Use in Purchasing
  • Influencing Purchasers: Challenges Selling Sustainable Products & Services
  • Buying Innovation: Using Procurement to Stimulate New Solutions
  • Purchasing Category Workshops:
    • Food Service
    • Electricity
    • Transportation & Fuels
    • Construction & Facility Renovation
    • Information Technology (IT) Hardware and Services
    • Fiber- and Timber-based Products
    • Chemically-intensive Products
    • Professional Services

Call for Presenters

Want to share a case study or some other example of leadership from your institution?  All are invited to submit proposals for the lead-off presentations that will take place at the beginning of each workshop.  More information about the Call for Presenters and Facilitators.  Deadline for proposals is April 2nd.

Those wishing to learn more about the Council are encouraged to attend one of the Council’s weekly SPLC 101 Webinars and sign-up for the Council’s semimonthly newsletter SPLC Update.

 

Courtesy of Sam Hummel, Director of Outreach on the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council