Mississauga Purchasing Practices to Increase Focus on Social, Ethical and Environmental Aspects

City of Mississauga staff today presented a draft sustainable procurement policy to General Committee. Making Better Choices: A Sustainable Purchasing Approach is the proposed strategy to update the City’s purchasing practices.

According to the staff report, sustainable procurement considers social, ethical and environmental factors in the purchasing process, along with price, quality and service. It ensures that purchasing decisions favour environmentally preferable goods and services, and view unethical vendor practices as unacceptable. It takes into account the sustainability factors of goods and services and the practices of suppliers along the supply chain.

“Price, quality and service have always been important purchasing criteria in Mississauga,” said Mayor Bonnie Crombie. “We are now expanding our approach to make sure we take into account social, ethical and environmental aspects when we procure our goods and services. We need to look at the total cost of our purchases and change our corporate culture to put sustainability at the heart of our business. It’s one more step we can take to ensure we have fair and responsible purchasing practices.”

As next steps, staff plan to implement a Supplier Code of Conduct to promote the City’s intention to purchase from vendors with ethical practices.  In addition, the proposed purchasing approach will be tested with several upcoming procurement opportunities. The first opportunity will be a bid call to supply coffee.

“The City already includes environmental aspects in much of our procurement,” said Gary Kent, Commissioner, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer. “The City is building on this so that we continue to obtain the best value and apply social, ethical and environmental factors in our purchasing practices.”

The proposed strategy will go to Council for final approval on June 21. With Council’s approval, staff will implement the three-year plan that has three goals and six objectives. Supporting actions are expected to begin in 2018.