York University wins Buy Social Canada social procurement award
Why It Matters
With inflation and reduced donations, some charities are looking for new ways to earn revenue. In parallel, a growing number of big institutional purchasers are looking to “buy social” — expanding the market opportunity for charities, non-profits and social enterprises to offer products and services.
[aesop_image img=”https://futureofgood.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/unnamed-5.jpg” panorama=”off” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” caption=”At the virtual Buy Social Canada Symposium, Charlotte Lethwaite, chief operation officer for CleanStart Property Services (right) accepted a social procurement champion award on behalf of her social enterprise. ” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]
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When Charlotte Lewthwaite and her colleagues told their social enterprises’ front-line staff they wanted to ‘go greener’ something surprising happened.
“Suddenly,” she said at the virtual Buy Social Canada symposium held earlier this month, “[staff] who had never spoken up before” were talking: suggesting new ways to sort waste and divert products from the landfill.
Lewthwaite is the chief operating officer for BC-based CleanStart Property Services, a social enterprise that does tough work — hoarding clean-ups, junk removal, pest control and deep cleaning.
In the course of a workday, company staff, who face barriers to employment, remove tons and tons of excess stuff from homes from Squamish to Hope — clothing, appliances, lightbulbs, chemicals, and more.
They had always tried to recycle as much as they could, but in 2021, they kicked it into overdrive; in part, realizing the amount they discarded was weighing on their staff.
“The people who were doing this work every day were seeing the environmental effects; and I think, whether they realized it or not, it was bad for their morale — to know that they weren’t contributing to the solution, they were contributing to the problem,” said Lewthwaite.
Management decided to shift things up.
They engaged environmental experts, community members and staff, and implemented new practices. They installed GPS devices to minimize excess fuel consumption during daily operations; they started using more environmentally friendly cleaning supplies; and they teamed up with neighbouring charities in Vancouver’s downtown eastside to identify products they needed — a wheelchair, a leaf blower, and other costly items; and began diverting and donating those products from the trash to their partners.
The results of the changes, for the already-social supplier, were good for staff and good for business. For one, Lewthwaite said, morale shot up — an important boost during a difficult period for all workplaces. And second, the executive says, in an interview with Future of Good, the shift helped the social enterprise stay ahead of the competition.
“We recognized,” she says, “if we were going to continue holding the attention and interest of our clients, we were going to need to shift our operations, and we wanted to be ahead of that.”
Before the changes, CleanStart was already a valued social enterprise supplier for many local institutions, including BC Housing, Atira Women’s Resource Society, and Vancouver Coastal Health; but it was some of these approaches — of pushing the sustainability envelope and doing it in partnership with their community — that Lethwaite accepted, on behalf of her team, a Buy Social Canada “social procurement champion” award, alongside two other winners: York University and procurement-focused public servants across Canada.
In addition to offering inspiration, the event also highlighted the growing market opportunities available to non-profits and charities that sell sustainable or socially-driven goods and services, including to local public-sector institutions.
[aesop_image img=”https://futureofgood.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/unnamed-6.jpg” panorama=”off” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” caption=”Construction is well underway on York University’s Markham campus, a 40,000 sq. foot, $275.5 million project. In completing the work, York has set a target of spending at least $3 million with social procurement suppliers and creating at least 10 opportunities for equity-deserving trades apprentices. (Courtesy: York University)” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]
Looking to sell to the public sector? Think small contracts, not big RFPs
When it comes to selling to universities or governments, social purpose suppliers sometimes make life too tough on themselves, says Brent Brodie, a senior procurement analyst at York University.
“Everyone always jumps to RFPs,” he says, referring to when institutions put out open requests for proposals from potential suppliers. “[But] there’s also lower-value procurements that we do more frequently than we do our open public bids.”
Over the last few years, York University has had a lot of opportunities to refine the way they work with socially-focused suppliers and to figure out what works best.
About five years ago, Brodie says, the institution set an intention to use its capacity as a local “anchor institution” to support the community. They hosted consultations with neighbors, he says, and heard that their communities wanted York to advance the values of social justice through their spending and wanted those purchases to create local employment opportunities.
Since then, York has become one of Canada’s first universities to have a social procurement policy which guides the institution’s spending decisions. They’ve also boosted their social procurement spending, purchasing products and services worth more than $5.5 million with socially and environmentally-motivated businesses across 14 construction projects. In addition, their projects have offered nearly 40,000 hours of work to 56 equity-deserving apprentices, Brodie says.
In achieving these results, York has worked with a cohort of “traditional” businesses that have hired equity-deserving apprentices to work on their jobs, spurring hiring decisions that give folks a chance to build skills and experience. They’ve also, however, worked with a group of social-purpose businesses who offer a variety of products — courier services, catering, general labour and otherwise.
Brodie says all of these purchases have helped York achieve its impact objectives without sacrificing on price or quality: “Just because a business is equity-deserving…doesn’t mean it’s going to cost more…They’re still competitive.”
Moreover, he says, they haven’t seen any decline in quality from working with social enterprises: “Supplier performance – good or bad isn’t unique to social procurement. You can just as easily have poor performance from a traditional vendor.”
For charities or non-profits that sell goods or services and are keen to start working with public-sector institutions, Brodie encourages starting with smaller-value procurements. “If you look at the volume of activity, most public sector institutions will have many more opportunities at a lower financial threshold than they do big ones,” he says. “It has the potential to be quite a fruitful and lucrative market for some of those organizations.”
Brodie says that for a small or mid-sized organization, a couple of contracts under $100,000 could help to create a strong financial foundation.
And among public-sector institutions, it’s not just York University that’s incorporating social value into spending decisions. At last week’s event, Emilio Franco, the executive director of the federal treasury board secretariat accepted an award on behalf of federal social procurement professionals.
[aesop_image img=”https://futureofgood.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/unnamed-7.jpg” panorama=”off” align=”center” lightbox=”on” captionsrc=”custom” caption=”Emilio Franco, executive director of the federal treasury board of Canada secretariat accepted a social procurement champion award on behalf of procurement civil servants across the country last week during the digital Buy Social Canada symposium. ” captionposition=”left” revealfx=”off” overlay_revealfx=”off”]
Federal procurement targets 5 percent spend on Indigenous-owned businesses
In his remarks, Franco noted that in recent years, the federal government has made several steps forward in supporting government procurement staff to leverage its $20 million annual spend to advance social and environmental objectives.
In 2019, he says, the government redefined “best value” — shifting away from focusing narrowly on purchasing from the supplier with the lowest price; to a regime that balances cost and value over the lifecycle of a product. This shift allows procurement professions to include social and environmental value considerations in their decision-making.
Last year, the government also replaced a “decades-old, heavy, prescriptive” procurement policy with a new policy, the directive on the management of procurements, Franco said. The new policy is less “prescriptive,” and more “principles-based,” Franco said, and requires government buyers to achieve best value in a way that is consistent with the government’s socio-economic and environmental objectives.
Finally, last year the government also announced a target of spending 5 percent of its total federal procurement budget with Indigenous-owned businesses. This target is important, Franco said, “because what gets measured gets done.”
Franco says procurement staff are working every day with civil servants in ministries across the government, supporting them to identify and incorporate more ways to work with diverse suppliers, social enterprises, and sustainability-focused businesses.
“Moving an organization as large as the federal government is definitely not easy,” Franco says. “But it’s important.”
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