Sustainable procurement

A big talking day for me today - a one hour talk, repeated twice, to the Sustainable Procurement Conference. My topic was employee engagement and how it's not sufficient to purchase environmentally preferable equipment; you also need to change working practices to ensure that it delivers the maximum environmental gain. Changing habits, of course, is not an easy thing to do.

A very satisfying day, as it turns out - we had to bring in extra chairs for the morning session and both audiences displayed a very gratifying level of engagement with the topic. Some very animated and productive conversations took place at the end of each session, and overall there was a great deal of positive energy. I really think this would not have been the case only a year ago - the people I was talking to then were a lot less receptive. If we can keep this momentum going, we have a really good chance of making the changes that are necessary to mitigate the effects of climate crisis.