SPU 101- Sustainable Procurement at McGill
Course Objective
McGill University is committed to Sustainable Procurement and the use of its supply chain to bring about positive social, environmental, and economic outcomes. This course provides an introductory overview of Sustainable Procurement at McGill and explains how individual faculties, departments, and administrative units can support the University’s sustainability objectives through sustainable purchasing in their areas. This course is made available to interested McGill community members through HR’s Organizational Development program. The course is mandatory for units seeking the higher levels of the Sustainable Workplace certification and can be offered, on-demand, to units seeking such certifications.
Course: SPU 101
Prerequisites: None
Duration: 2 hours
Course format: Training workshop
Course material: None
In this training workshop you will learn:
- How procurement (by Procurement Services) and purchasing (by faculties, departments and units) at McGill can support the University’s sustainability objectives.
- How Sustainable Procurement at McGill has developed, what are the current activities under this program, and how your unit can contribute to this effort through its own purchasing activities.
- How to apply lifecycle thinking to purchasing activities in your faculty, department or unit.
- How to identify, understand, and reduce the social and environmental risks in your purchasing activities.
- How to support purchases from social economy, indigenous, and other diversity suppliers.
- How to choose more sustainable goods and services and interact with suppliers in order to promote their involvement.
- How using the concept of “total cost of ownership” can help inform more sustainable purchasing.
Participants will be encouraged to:
- Interact with their peers in break-out sessions.
- Discuss their current purchases (types of products and services) and explore possible social and environmental criteria for more sustainable options.
- Explore various certifications and eco-labels and how these can support more sustainable purchases.