Supply Management Magazine reports that the UK's National Health Service has published a wide-ranging report examining the sources of its 18 milliontonne annual carbon footprint. The result outlined in NHS England report was that, while energy use made up 22 per cent of total emissions, and travel 18 per cent, the other 60 per cent were generated by procurement (defined in this case as the purchase of goods and services through the supply chain by the NHS in England).

For Graham Randles, program manager of the Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code, the publication of the report was “groundbreaking” for purchasing. He says it emphasised how much of an organisation’s carbon emissions come under procurement’s influence. Many buyers may not be keen to become the focal point for their organisation’s attempts to reduce CO2 output on top of everything else, but Randles says those already involved in this agenda have made a lot of progress in recent years.

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