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Corporate social responsibility: The City of North Vancouver goes beyond traditional bid criteria
Terry Krysak
The City of North Vancouver (CNV) received significant recognition for its commitment to sustainability in 2005. It was involved in the Silva Building project, which won LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). It was the first residential building in Canada to receive such an award. And for the second time, the City received the annual Energy Aware Award for outstanding efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. We've also started to build sustainability language right into our requests for proposals (RFPs).
For example, in May 2005, the City initiated an RFP on behalf of the Vancouver Regional Co-operative Purchasing Group. The RFP was for the supply and delivery of office supplies and recycled photocopy paper for 14 of the 21 co-op members. The contract, worth over $750,000 annually, has a duration of 36 months with an option to renew for two 12-month extensions. It also contains a number of challenging requirements for the vendors short-listed from the call for credentials.
The service component requires the vendor to hold all inventory and be capable of shipping to a large number of public sector organizations. These organizations have multiple departments and contacts, and various delivery locations and cost centres.
The RFP also calls for on-line ordering of supplies, in addition to the traditional methods of fax or phone; purchasing card payment capabilities; and of course, timely delivery of goods. One of the requirements is a 95 per cent fill rate based on 24-hour processing of catalogue ordered items and two weeks delivery time on non-catalogue items. Supplies ordered prior to 4:00 p.m. are usually delivered the next day, individually packaged with the packing slip stapled to the bag or taped to the box.
For this contract, the buying team at the City of North Vancouver decided to ask for a corporate social responsibility (CSR) component in the bid document. The idea was to complement the City’s corporate sustainability objectives. We advised the vendors it would be used as part of the evaluation matrix. The difficult part of this task was defining CSR as evaluation criteria and deciding what value to place on the weighting of these criteria in the final evaluation.
Mills Basics—responsible vendor
Corporate social responsibility and sustainability programs are an emerging area in purchasing criteria. As such, the co-op provided leadership by developing objective criteria in the competitive bidding process as it applied to sustainability.
The criteria included the more obvious environmental factors, but a demonstration of social values was also required. That one is more challenging in terms of assessing qualitative and quantitative benefits. As a group, the co-op members had to reach a consensus on the evaluation criteria, while keeping in mind the requirements of their clients.
As part of the bidding process, the vendors had to demonstrate their CSR initiatives had verifiable goals, objectives and key performance indicators. Bidding vendors were also required to document the methods, practices and linkages that showed their social responsibility objectives and goals had been realized through a measurable process.
Take, for example, Mills Basics, the successful bidder. Included in its proposal was data on recent corporate social responsibility achievements, including: Ethics in Action 2005 award winner; membership in the Vancouver Social Purchasing Portal; one of the original partners in Fast Tracks to Employment, a downtown eastside community employment program established to help under-employed and unemployed people find jobs.
Mills Basic had also achieved the "Caring Company" designation from Imagine Canada for community investments; propane powered delivery vehicles; and willingness to collect packaging after delivery to reuse or recycle as applicable. For deliveries in outlying areas, Mills uses a same-day courier service with a fleet of 10 Honda Civic hybrid vehicles.
Mills Basics is a local entrepreneurial company, which has demonstrated leadership in the area of CSR for many years. This particular vendor was able to compete on pricing while addressing environmental and social values.
The successful outcome of this contracting initiative confirms that CSR is not only alive and well, but can thrive with co-operative purchasing opportunities. The process not only provided savings on the cost of goods and services, but enhanced the ability of each organization to strengthen sustainable supply chain management practices.
Terry Krysak, recently retired, wrote the above article as store keeper/ buyer with the City of North Vancouver.
Purchasing and supply chain management practitioners interested in submitting an article to In the Field should contact the editor at lisa.wichmann@pb2b.rogers.com. We reserve the right to edit all entries.
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