Purchasing and Investment Planning Project

From Common Energy UVic

The Purchasing and Investment Project is a Planning Project for the Business and the Economy Working Group, using the Seven Question Tool.

For the example of a Planning Project see the Purchasing, Investment, and Waste Planning Tool.

Contents 1 What are the needs that the project will address? 2 What problem can we solve to address these needs? 3 What do we need to know to solve the problem? 4 Who should we ask to get that information? 5 How are the decisions that effect this problem made? 6 Who do we need to engage to make this change? 7 What is it going to take, and how are we going to do it?

[edit] What are the needs that the project will address?

• Need to reduce our ecological footprints to a globally sustainable level
• Need to understand the impacts of our consumption and investment decisions
• Need to overcome the informational and institutional barriers to incorporating social and ecological considerations in purchasing and investment practices
• Need to combine our planning for purchasing with our planning for waste as our purchasing decisions are tightly linked to our waste decisions
• Need to support green business practices publicly, need to create economies of scale to reduce the price of green products and services

[edit] What problem can we solve to address these needs?

How can efficiently and effectively use purchasing and investment policy for the university in an ethical and sustainable manner?

How can we become a positive model for ethical and environmental purchasing in the greater community?

What opportunities do our investment and purchasing practices provide for reducing our ecological footprint, while providing leadership, and creating the knowledge that people need to act?

How do we go: beyond climate-neutral - Drive supply, green service webs

We can show that it is feasible - because we also have a social mission, freedom of the university

Previous question - How do we consume at a globally sustainable level and how do we consume strategically?

[edit] What do we need to know to solve the problem?

• Is a triple bottom line accounting system ideal to answer our question?
  • What's Wrong With The Triple Bottom Line
• What are other higher education institutions doing?
• What are our current purchasing and investment policies?
• What institutions could we collaborate with to transform the local Service Web?

[edit] Who should we ask to get that information?

(e.g. Farmer X, Y, and Z, the people that purchase UVic's food, sustainable agriculture experts...)

[edit] How are the decisions that effect this problem made?

(e.g. Who controls UVic's food purchasing? How do we give them a mandate to change their purchasing? Who controls land-use decisions in the region?...)

[edit] Who do we need to engage to make this change?

(e.g. Diverse groups and individuals on campus to build support, the relevant decision makers, the relevant experts, the farmers...)

[edit] What is it going to take, and how are we going to do it?

Objective 1: Purchasing

Objective 2: Investment

1. Annual review
2. Ask for reporting and inventories