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Procurement Policy

Overall Aim

Leads Direct is committed to ensuring the goods and services it purchases are manufactured, delivered, used and disposed of in an environmentally and socially responsible manner and deliver long term value for money for the Company and the customers it serves.

Leads Direct will regularly review and update its corporate objectives to include sustainability and consult with key stakeholders to develop its Sustainable Development Strategy.

Key Sustainability Objectives

Buying more sustainably offers potential whole life cost savings, supports our commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility, safeguards our reputation as a responsible company, and protects the health of staff and the public at large.

The key objectives addressed by this policy are:

  • Reducing fossil fuel usage to minimise climate change
  • Reducing usage of hazardous materials
  • Reducing waste
  • Improving public health and quality of life
  • Increasing levels of employment, skills and equality in the UK
  • Ensuring fair pay and working conditions throughout our Supply Chain
  • Protecting biodiversity
  • Complying with current (and anticipating future) legislation

The company will define measures relating to each of these objectives.

Scope

This policy applies to all purchasing activities within the company.

Key Policy Principles

Spend Analysis and Prioritisation

To support its spend analysis and work-planning, Leads Direct will establish a process to assess the following criteria at sub-category level:

  • Level of spend
  • Level of contract renewal activity
  • Key suppliers by type and location (Multinational, National, SME, Social Enterprise / Overseas, UK, Regional, Local)
  • Level of risk against each sustainability objective
  • Scope for improvement
  • Level of influence

This will be used to prioritise sub-categories for sustainability improvement activities.

Demand Review

Prior to any proposed procurement, buyers will review the aggregate requirement to minimise volume, scale, costs and environmental impact. Buyers will establish that:

  • there is a genuine operational need for the purchase
  • all cost effective opportunities for products to be shared, upgraded, refurbished, leased or delivered as a service have been exploited
  • the product will be used efficiently, minimising waste
  • the remaining forecast is accurate.

Sustainability Review

Prior to any substantial procurement process, Leads Direct will review the purchase against the key sustainability objectives listed above. Where relevant, Leads Direct will identify actions to reduce impacts through the use of comprehensive specifications, evaluation criteria, supplier development and continuous improvement.

Whole Life Costing (Intermediate & advanced)

Where relevant, Leads Direct will evaluate all procurement on the basis of long term value for money, using whole life costing to assess:

  • purchase, installation, transportation and commissioning costs
  • operating costs, including labour, maintenance, re-processing, energy, water and consumables usage
  • management costs, including staff training, insurance, health and safety and environmental costs
  • disposal costs

This approach should be used for all capital investments, waste contracts and where comparing consumables against reusable alternatives. For key cost categories, such as energy, price escalation indices will be used to reflect cost increases over time. Leads Direct will review the feasibility of expanding this approach to include costs and benefits affecting customers and external social and environmental costs.

Mandatory Minimum Standards

Leads Direct will explore the feasibility of adopting minimum social and environmental standards for products and services. Where there is no significant increase in cost or supply risks, these will be adopted as Mandatory Minimum Standards.

Innovation & Supplier Development

Leads Direct considers Sustainability to be a key aspect of its commitment to innovation. Leads Direct will prioritise key suppliers with the highest spend and sustainability impacts for targeted supplier development activities. These will be given senior management support and focus on continuous improvement and tangible delivery of sustainability benefits throughout the supply chain.
Leads Direct will work with these suppliers to explore service-based contracts for products. This will encourage suppliers to hold responsibility for the whole life management of products, using gain share and incentives to reduce whole life costs and environmental impacts.

Leads Direct will encourage suppliers to propose innovations which improve the sustainability of their tender responses and reflect this in tender evaluation criteria. Suppliers should recognise the commitment of Leads Direct to sustainability and strive to offer innovative and cost effective sustainable solutions.

Training and Implementation

All other staff directly or indirectly involved in procurement activity, will receive “Sustainability Awareness” training.
“Sustainable Procurement” training will be incorporated in to the induction, job
descriptions, objectives and recruitment criteria for all relevant staff and the source
planning and contract management processes. Norman Lewis will appoint a
“Sustainability Champion” to promote and support sustainable procurement practices.
Norman Lewis will review the feasibility of an incentive scheme to encourage buyers
to improve their sustainable procurement performance.

Communication & Reporting

To communicate this policy to suppliers and other interested parties, Leads Direct will place a copy of this Procurement Policy on its website.

Policy Development

This policy will be reviewed on a six monthly basis and exceptionally following any new Government initiatives.

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