The UK Government’s 2005 Sustainable Development Strategy set out the ambitious goal to make the UK a leader in the EU in sustainable procurement by 2009. The strategy recognised that this was important in moving towards a more sustainable economy, firstly because of the scale of the public sector spend on goods, services, works and utilities 13% of GDP is capable of stimulating the market for more sustainable goods and services. Secondly, because only with government leadership can the consumption patterns of business and consumers be shifted onto a more sustainable path. Acknowledging that simply continuing with current efforts would leave the UK short of that goal, the Secretary of State foe environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury established a business led Task Force under the chairmanship of Sir Neville Simms to devise a National Action Plan to deliver the UK objective.

Procuring the Future.
Sustainable Procurement National Action Plan: Recommendations from the Sustainable Procurement Task Force.
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) June 2006.

http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/publications/procurement-action-plan/index.htm

The following sections deal briefly with much of the work associated with the Task Force, the Action Plan, Flexible Framework and getting started. The full account of this is contained in the Task Force publication:

• The sustainable Procurement Task Force
• Why Sustainable Procurement matters
• What matters
• Recommendations for Action
• Getting started
• Flexible Framework
• Evaluation Checklist
• Action and Implementation Plan
• Government response to Action Plan
• Local Authority response to Action Plan
• Golden Thread