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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.

British Columbia Lottery Corporation

Procurement Program Refresh 

BCLC identified a need to re-examine their sustainable procurement program, which had not been reaching its full potential.  To better align their procurement practices with their newly adopted Social Purpose and corporate sustainability goals, BCLC was looking for a roadmap to refresh their program and ensure its longevity.

Working with a core team of representatives from both the Supply Management and Social Purpose & Sustainability teams, Reeve set-out on a 2-phased approach.

 

The first phase focused on looking at industry best practices and benchmarking BCLC’s current sustainable procurement program to identify strengths, gaps, and recent success stories. From here, Reeve engaged with internal stakeholders to formulate a Sustainable Procurement Implementation Strategy that would provide a roadmap for program development over the next three years.

 

In Phase 2, the team delved into the development of a few key program elements, as outlined in the Implementation Strategy. These included:

  1. A Sustainable Procurement Policy ready to enter the approvals process;
  2. A set of Tools to support procurement staff and Client Departments with incorporating sustainability throughout the procurement process;
  3. A High Impact Procurement Opportunities (HIPO) List of upcoming procurements and piloting of the new sustainable procurement Tools in a select number of procurements;
  4. A Communications & Training Plan to help guide the dissemination of information and identify key audiences to train; and
  5. Updated processes to collect and measure sustainable procurement KPI’s.

BCLC staff and senior leadership now have a deeper understanding of a high-performing sustainable procurement program, along with their own Strategy to guide the building out of such a program that will align with their Social Purpose and sustainability values.

After a year of working with Reeve, BCLC also got a kick-start on several key foundational elements of their program – giving them the tools and knowledge to become self-sufficient and evolve their practices over time.