Biodiversity duty report 2018 to 2020

10. Scottish Procurement And Property Directorate

Sustainable Procurement Duty

Appropriate policy and legislation is in place to maximise the contribution that public procurement in Scotland can make to economic, social and environmental wellbeing, primarily in the form of the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 (The Act).

The sustainable procurement duty in the Act requires that before a contracting authority buys anything, it must think about how it can improve economic, social, and environmental wellbeing and then must act in a way to secure these improvements.

To help public authorities address economic, social and environmental risks and opportunities through their procurements, a number of sustainability tools and supporting guidance have been developed.

These include guidance on how to consider and address risks and opportunities related to Biodiversity: (https://sustainableprocurementtools.scot/index.cfm/guidance/biodiversity/)

Preparing for the Decarbonisation of heat and implementing new technologies

Scottish Procurement contract manages the Warmer homes contract which is supporting biodiversity by reducing carbon emissions. Warmer Homes Scotland has already changed and adapted a great deal since it was launched in 2015, incorporating and successfully embedding new technologies and new measures that have had a benefit for fuel poor households. For example, we installed more than twice as many heat pumps in 2019/20 as we did just two years ago. The percentage of total heating installations powered by renewable technologies such as heat pumps and biomass has increased to 5.1% from 2% in 2017/18. More than 33,000 tonnes of CO2 have been saved through this contract to date.

The Scottish Government's target is for 35% of heat for domestic buildings to be supplied using low carbon technologies by 2032, meaning that schemes such as Warmer Homes Scotland will have to continue to increase the contribution being made to the rollout of reliable, accessible and effective renewable heating systems for homes.

Renewable Electricity

Scottish Government is helping to support biodiversity through the national electricity framework. The framework enables public bodies to buy renewable energy via the purchase of Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO's) certificates. Scottish Government, along with some Central Government, Local Authority and Higher Education / Further Education bodies buy through this framework and work is under way to further promote uptake to all public bodies under the framework.

IT Devices

Our collaborative frameworks for laptop and desktop computers require all packaging to contain minimum levels of recycled content, maximise the use of recyclable materials and avoid the use of single-use plastics.

In the period 2018/19-2019/20 our framework supplier (HP Inc.) recycled 35.6 metric tonnes of packaging material and 4,000 devices directly related to the frameworks.

All devices supplied under our IT collaborative frameworks are required to meet or exceed the latest Energy Star and Green Electronics Council EPEAT compliance standards. This ensures devices are manufactured to conserve energy, minimise the use of environmentally sensitive materials, and increase recyclability.

The Green Electronics Council estimate that over their lifetime, compared to products that do not meet EPEAT eco-label standards, IT products purchased through Scottish Procurement frameworks in 2018/19 and 2019/20 will result in the following environmental benefits:

• Savings of 117,230 MWh of electricity
• A reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of 73,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalents
• A reduction of 296 metric tons in hazardous waste and 38,251 metric tons of primary materials.

Minimising the Estate

The Scottish Government are continually working to improve the efficiency and environmental performance of our properties, and to reduce costs.

The Scottish Government and related bodies' estate requirements are kept under constant review and surplus property is vacated where possible. Where new property is taken on sustainability is a main criterion taken into consideration to combat Climate Change and reduce whole life costs

Every year a report is laid before Parliament (Section 76 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009) on the performance and sustainability of the Scottish civil estate using a range of metrics including recycling, water usage, energy consumption and cost per FTE.

Discussions took place with the Deputy First Minister to investigate how further property efficiencies can be made. We are broadly proposing some Scottish Public Finance Manual additions and changes in alignment with a number of other areas in SG looking at spending controls and budget restraint.