Sustainable procurement - an overview
LSA members sign up to a set of principles, which commit them to acting on climate change. One of these principles is 'to work with external stakeholders to reduce our indirect impact' in recognition of the fact that law firms’ most significant impacts are indirect, that suppliers are a key stakeholder and that working with them on environmental sustainability provides the opportunity for both cost and carbon savings. This guide is designed to help firms apply that principle.
Law firms come in varying sizes and many will not have dedicated procurement staff. This guide is particularly useful for firms without professional procurement departments and is intended to assist businesses who delegate procurement responsibility to individuals or other non-dedicated departments. It is intended to inform firms’ existing approach to buying goods and services, not by redesigning the procurement process, but by raising issues to consider along the way.
The guide has been put together by representatives of LSA members Burges Salmon, DLA Piper, Slaughter and May, and Taylor Wessing, who have already begun the process of building sustainability into their procurement decisions and have experienced some of the benefits and challenges of doing so. It looks at:
- what sustainable procurement is
- what the benefits are
- how to build sustainability into purchasing decisions
- the particular sustainability issues for products and services that law firms commonly buy.
These points are then illustrated in a number of practical examples, which demonstrate how you might apply sustainability principles to the purchase of a variety of products and services by highlighting key questions at each stage of the procurement process.
The LSA does not endorse any individual suppliers of legal services or third party consultancies. If you have any questions about the procurement guide or need advice regarding a specific sustainable purchasing issue, please e-mail us.