Some 15 Canadian universities, from coast to coast, have come together to form a working group on sustainable procurement, with Carleton playing a leading role. While institutional procurement offices have been collaborating for some time, notably through the Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO), CASPAR, which stands for “CAUBO-ACPAU-Sustainable Procurement-Approvisionnement Responsable,” stems from those exchanges and the desire to formalize and ramp-up sustainability-focused collaboration.
Members of the new group share a desire to align their spending with their universities’ sustainability objectives. This entails considering social and environmental considerations when purchasing goods or services or spending on construction. At Carleton, institutional procurement represents between $150-200M of spending each year and a tremendous opportunity to influence our institution’s social, environmental, and climate footprint.
“We have many suppliers in common,” explains Stéphanie Leclerc, McGill’s Program Manager for Sustainable Procurement and CASPAR Co-Chair. “We face some of the same risks, in terms of threats to biodiversity or forced labour in our respective supply chains, for example, so it makes sense to share best practices to mitigate these risks.” CASPAR members are working on three key objectives: 1. Capacity building to bring all Canadian universities on board with sustainable procurement; 2. Common efforts to develop a common language about sustainable procurement and possibly common tools such as standard contract clauses, benchmarking tools, and shared key performance indicators; and 3. Market monitoring to keep abreast of industry issues, standards, or regulatory developments and promote best practices.
“We are proud to be part of this initiative, which was instigated in collaboration with other procurement professionals at Simon Fraser University, the University of Victoria, Queen’s University, OCAD University, the University of Toronto, and many others from across the country,” says CASPAR Co-Chair Sandra Nelson, the Director, Strategic Procurement of Carleton’s Procurement Services. While representatives from McGill and Carleton are currently serving as co-chairs, the group’s TEAMS platform is hosted at Queens University. The group’s executive sponsor, Mr. Martin Pochurko, Simon Fraser’s VP of Finance and Administration, notes, “The CASPAR working group is a tremendous example of how universities can work together to find everyday solutions to today’s climate and social challenges. Canadian universities share strategies, common practices, and results through CASPAR to make more valuable contributions to institutional sustainability goals.”