Issue - meetings

Sustainable Products Policy

Meeting: 23/07/2024 - Performance Monitoring Panel (Item 22)

22 Sustainable Products Policy pdf icon PDF 207 KB

To review progress and ensure the new policy is achieving its intended aims (report of the Assistant Director – Regulatory enclosed).

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Consideration was given to the report of the Assistant Director – Regulatory which reviewed progress and ensured the new policy was achieving its intended aims.

 

The Climate Change and Environment Officer and the Assistant Director – Regulatory attended for this item.

 

The Climate Change and Environment Officer introduced the report which updated the committee on progress made since the implementation of the Sustainable Products Policy in November 2022.

 

An action plan of monitoring measures had been considered by the Performance Monitoring Panel in March 2023, which aimed to improve sustainability across all operations of the partnership by embedding the Sustainable Products Policy in the procurement framework and discontinuing the purchase of single use products where possible. Progress made towards achievement of the action plan was included within the report.

 

Members considered the update and made the following comments:

 

  • Members expressed concern that central stationery supplies led to localised hoarding of items, which in turn, led to over ordering.

 

  • Members stated that the council needed to be aware of spend on all items, such as stationery, and were keen that the progress of the policy be monitored against specific targets. Members requested that officers suggest how this could be achieved.
    • The Climate Change and Environment Officer responded that:
      • Whilst the audit process included granular data, the current purchase system, which included individual departments placing orders through Amazon with P-cards, had not furnished the council with detailed records from which a benchmark could be set. Departments were to be encouraged to use ‘preferred suppliers’ which would enhance data records and enable assessment of reduction savings; and
      • Target measures were in place within the action plan to evidence progress, such as the ‘single use plastic register’.
    • The Assistant Director – Regulatory confirmed the difficulties regarding the current data. Audits and assessments over the next twelve months would allow for the identification of cost and carbon-reduction improvements and enable targets to be set against benchmarked data.

 

  • A proposal that a further update be presented to the Performance Monitoring Panel in 12 months’ time, to allow for the collation of meaningful data, was agreed by members.

 

AGREED:

 

a)    That the progress of the monitoring measures outlined in the action plan which supported the successful implementation of the Sustainable Products Policy, in line with the Council’s commitments to resource and waste management, and mitigation and adaptation to Climate Change, be noted; and

 

b)    That an update be presented to the Panel in 12 months’ time.