Green Procurement
Green procurement plays a key role in promoting sustainability by prioritising environmentally friendly products and services, reducing waste and supporting ethical supply chains.
Overview
UCD has a responsibility to purchase products and services that have a reduced impact on the environment throughout their lifecycle. This includes considering factors like energy efficiency, resource conservation, and waste reduction when making purchasing decisions.
In April 2024, the Irish government published a new (opens in a new window)Green Public Procurement Strategy and Action Plan. As a public research university, UCD has a responsibility to promote green procurement to support these environmental and wider sustainable development objectives.
Promoting procurement practices that are sustainable and ethical is one of the targets of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Campus Initiatives
UCD’s buying power is a significant lever for change. The University spends approximately €130M annually on goods and services. The university adopted a Sustainable Procurement Policy in 2021 which supports the procurement of products and services produced and delivered in a socially responsible way.
This policy embeds the values of social equity, human health and environmental concern into the daily operational needs of the university community, from teaching and research to laboratory equipment, office purchases and capital projects.
In tendering for goods, services and equipment the University’s Procurement and Contracts Function applies green public procurement criteria by using the EPA’s Green Procurement Guidance and the GPP criteria. All tenders advertised by the University have as a standard evaluation criterion ‘Environmental / Sustainable / Social Considerations’ which mirrors the approach of the Office of Government Procurement. The weighting attached to this criterion depends on the goods, services or equipment that is the subject of the tender process and the importance of environmental and sustainable considerations.
Green procurement training has been provided to staff in the central UCD Procurement and Contracts function.
However, over 3,000 individuals in Schools, Colleges and other Units are also responsible for requisitioning and purchasing goods and services. To meet the Climate Action Mandate requirements, a programme of training and staff development for these individuals will be developed.
Research, Innovation and Impact
Green procurement can be negatively impacted by greenwashing, which is the act of making false or misleading statements about the environmental benefits of a product or practice.
UCD researchers in this field include:
(opens in a new window)Professor Donna Marshall, a multi-award-winning Sustainable Supply Chain scholar. She is passionate about helping to bring systemic change to broken supply chains and how we overcome the world's biggest crises of climate chaos and the relentless exploitation of people and the planet.
(opens in a new window)Andreas Hoepner, Full Professor in the School of Business. He leads the GreenWatch research group, which uses AI to detect greenwashing, and is an EU policy advisor on greenwashing.
(opens in a new window)Dr Fabiola Schneider, who co-leads GreenWatch and has published papers on fossil fuel financing.
The Centre for Business and Society tackles seven global challenges including promoting responsible production and consumption, encouraging transparency and defending fair work.
Education
UCD Smurfit Business School offers a number of programmes in which students learn about green procurement.
The (opens in a new window)MSc in Sustainable Supply Chain Management has a focus on creating a more sustainable and just world. Students will gain insights across a range of vital knowledge areas and skills, from decision making that can shape international trade, through supply chains’ impact on the environment, to product safety and protection of workers’ conditions globally.
Students of the (opens in a new window)MSc in Business Sustainability gain fundamental expertise in the area of business sustainability. They get in-depth knowledge of the emerging issues and key skills necessary to integrate them so that a genuine, realistic and practical sustainability agenda can be created within their organisation.
As part of the Business Management Masters students take a module in Procurement and Supplier Management. This teaches them the latest developments in procurement strategy, sustainable procurement and ethical issues in procurement and supplier management.