Resource Consumption footprint · UK public procurement notice

Statement of Need

Our annual operating costs are £1.3billion and our supply chain spend is approximately £700million. We have previously carried out work to quantify and value the impacts associated with the Environment Agency’s procurement decisions. Our supply chain accounts for 62% of our sustainability impacts.

In terms of spend and sustainability impact our high impact areas are construction (of coastal & flood defences, and assets (e.g. pumping stations), fleet and IT. We also use common category goods including but not limited to clothing & PPE and furniture. We also have a significant laboratory service in place.

The Environment Agency (EA) has an ambitious sustainability strategy eMission2030 which addresses the 4 pillars of sustainability:

• Responding to the climate emergency - net zero by 2030
• Optimising our use of resources – moving from a linear to a circular business model
• Delivering environmental net gain
• Benefitting people and communities - social value

This brief focuses on “resource optimisation and our goal to move from a linear to a circular economy model”.

To do this, we need to understand the impact of what the Environment Agency currently uses in terms of resources, so that we can take action and measure our progress. This work will :

a. form the foundation of our transition from a linear to a circular business model

b. the resource consumption footprint will provide the evidence to drive change in buying habits.

c. by setting a baseline and collecting data, it will allow us to implement CE practises in subsequent years and be able to measure progress and set out our future aspirations.

We are aiming to calculate the resource consumption of our organisation.

By resource consumption we include:

i) physical / material resources and assets including but not limited to; water, wood, steel, soils etc.

ii) materials which are bought directly by us and those bought on our behalf.

iii) exclude the energy directly used by the organisation but we do want to consider embedded (indirect) emissions from energy use across our supply chain.

We will be setting a baseline against which we can take action. We therefore need to be able to record and report reductions against the baseline and demonstrate delivery of goals in resource consumption and circular economy. The approach we seek therefore needs to be repeatable on an annual basis and sensitive enough to record actual changes in our consumption habits.