The Canny Buyer
www.cannybuyer.com
The Canny Buyer initiative is a sustainable procurement initiative which includes an online guidebook for organisations interested in pursuing this activity.
The Canny Buyer initiative is a sustainable procurement initiative directed by Aberdeen City Council with funding from the Scottish Executive. Canny is a Scots word meaning "knowing, skilful, shrewd, luck, careful in money matters, harmless". These definitions all summarise the benefits of sustainable procurement. The initiative involves a web-based guidebook, a conference (held in February 2004) and a small downloadable "Pocket File".
Sustainable procurement is the application of sustainable development principles to procurement and is a key activity in helping to ensure that the world remains habitable and that people have a decent quality of life. In both private and public sectors, there is increasing pressure from customers, clients, government and the public to put sustainable procurement into practice.
The Canny Buyer website hosts examples of good practice alongside a guidebook on sustainable procurement. The purpose of the site is to give a straightforward up-to-date account of the important features of sustainable procurement, supplemented by links to sources, case studies, initiatives, and regulations that are available on the web. The web site also gives details of the different techniques that can be applied to the different stages of procurement.
It is hoped that the guidebook gives stimulation and support to those organisations that have not yet begun procuring sustainably; and for those organisations that are already further down the road of sustainable procurement, the guidebook may provide fresh insights to ease the way.
This guidebook is designed for a variety of audiences: environmental specialists (who know perhaps relatively little about procurement); for procurement specialists (who need to know how to take account of sustainability in their work); for senior managers, board members, governing body members (who need to have a strategic overview of the issues so as to decide how to approach them) and for budget holders, project managers and other specialists who need to be aware of how this issue affects their work. The guidebook is applicable to a range of organisations - small and large businesses, public and voluntary bodies: in short anyone who may need to utilise goods and services.
From the web site you can access or download a very concise comprehensive guide called "The Pocket file on Canny Buying". You can also access copies of the papers which were given at the Sustainable Procurement conference held in February 2004.