Vancouver International Airport

Social, Indigenous and Environmental Procurement Policy and Plan

Vancouver International Airport (YVR) identified a need to substantially advance their Sustainability Strategy. The Director of Sustainability wanted to work with a cross-functional steering committee to develop a procurement policy and plan that would engage existing and potential vendors.

Reeve was brought in to provide guidance to the Steering Committee of key internal stakeholders from across YVR to collaboratively develop and socialize a new Social, Environmental and Indigenous Purchasing Policy and plan at YVR.

Our project team included two consultants specializing in Indigenous engagement (Aaron Aubin Consulting and Beringia Community Planning) who worked with key YVR stakeholders in the development of an Indigenous Peoples Engagement Strategy. The Strategy was collaboratively created through a series of meetings, employee workbooks, and a full-day interactive workshop.

Reeve worked with the internal team to design the policy framework and then co-presented the plan to the executive team, securing unanimous support for the initiative. The key outcome the Airport Authority desired was internal support for a systematic approach to applying sustainability to procurement. The Reeve team was subsequently retained to develop action plans for each of the projects and initiatives proposed in the Strategy, providing employees with ready guidance on budgeting, distribution of responsibilities, and workplans.

The Social, Environmental and Indigenous Purchasing policy is now being applied to over $200 million dollars of spending annually with new work being done around specific social objectives in the capital spending program.