In undertaking its Procurement, the Airport seeks to ensure it is socially, economically and environmentally responsible through its Sustainable Procurement Code of Conduct. Suppliers are encouraged to support the Airport’s values Guidance for suppliers.
How does the Airport source companies to invite to tender?
The Airport will review the marketplace through various search tools – the internet, trade exhibitions, conventions and liaison with other Airports and Businesses.
Inclusion on tender exercises is through invitation only, unless we have published a requirement seeking expressions of interest.
Current procurement opportunities
There are currently no live procurement opportunities.
Introduction
Birmingham Airport’s Vision for Sustainability is to, “Maximise the economic and social benefits the Airport brings to our region and minimise our impact on our neighbours and the global environment.”
The Airport published its Sustainability Strategy in November 2019, setting out its aim to be a Net Zero carbon Airport for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2033, prioritising zero carbon airport operations and minimising carbon offsets. Scope 1 and 2 emissions relate to sources directly owned or controlled by Birmingham Airport, including goods, services and works procured by the Airport.
Sustainable procurement is defined as: “a process whereby organisations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only to the organisation, but also to society and the economy, whilst minimising damage to the environment.”
This definition is based on three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic.
The health of each pillar depends on that of the other two, meaning that all three must be considered in unison to achieve sustainable outcomes.
The Airport needs to be proportionate in its expectations, but all of its supply chain partners have a part to play in helping the Airport achieve its Sustainable Procurement goals.
Environmental – Taking Climate Action Seeking to minimise any negative environmental impacts of goods and services purchased, across the whole life cycle from raw material extraction to end of life.
Social – Doing the Right Thing: Managing and monitoring supply chains to ensure that relationships are based on integrity and trust, that ethical, human rights and employment standards, as expressed in both the International Labour Organisation (ILO)’s and World Trade Organisation Fundamental Conventions are met.
Economic – Sharing in the Airport’s Success: This principle relates not only to obtaining value for money from our contracts, across the whole life of the product or service, but also ensuring that local businesses, particularly Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME’s) can be a supplier to the Airport where it is feasible to do so.
Core Objectives
Aim | Achieved by |
|---|---|
To improve our own ability to effectively respond the sustainability agenda. | Ensuring that all stakeholders understand the importance of sustainable procurement. |
To improve the level of understanding and engagement of sustainability within our supply chains | Communicate with our suppliers and clearly articulate the sustainability agenda. Work with suppliers to improve their own sustainability credentials and to drive continuous improvement Review high impact contracts to identify potential opportunities to reduce negative impacts and seek alternatives that can have positive outcomes |
To ensure that procurement activities appropriately consider sustainability | Encourage the development of specification and designs that support sustainability goals and objectives To develop meaningful processes to ensure that sustainability is part of the decision making process when contracts are awarded. Ensuring that suitable opportunities to award contracts to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and / or Social Enterprises are identified and that our procurement processes do not unfairly disadvantage these sectors of the supply chain |
To improve our contract management processes so that we can actively monitor, manage, and report the performance of our supply chain | Implementing, monitoring, and acting on suitably meaningful metrics and KPIs to enable the effective management of our supply chain in terms of sustainability performance. |
Scope and Application
The application of this Code of Practice should be proportionate to the likely impact of the activity in question. As such, the procurement of major, multi-supplier, long term frameworks will typically warrant closer scrutiny than a single purchasing activity.
Consideration must be given, not only, to the impact of the initial procurement, but also to the ongoing impact through to end of life of any goods and services procured, any decommissioning of equipment, and any other aspects which would constitute a whole life approach to assessment of sustainability impact.
Where practicable and proportionate, an analysis of whole life costs should be part of the procurement process covering, as a minimum:
Manufacture, delivery, installation
Operating costs including energy, water usage and maintenance
End of life costs including decommissioning and disposal.
Delivering Value
Suppliers and contractors are:
required to deliver the best value for money and work collaboratively with Birmingham Airport to ensure it achieves the greatest all-round value from investments.
encouraged to showcase new and innovative technologies that are capable of providing technical and commercial benefits to current and future projects.
Environmental Management
Suppliers and contractors are:
required to take appropriate steps to prevent environmental damage and always comply with legislative and regulatory requirements.
required to identify and minimise risks and have a robust strategy to minimise any impact on the environment when completing works.
Water
Suppliers and contractors are:
required to actively reduce the volume of water used on development and operational sites and, if requested my the Airport, measure the embodied water in the products bought.
required to adhere to environmental permits relating to water discharge and must not discharge or abstract without the necessary permissions in place.
The Airport encourages suppliers to be proactive in innovation of solutions to reduce water usage and consumption.
Resource efficiency and waste
Suppliers and contractors are:
For goods, with an emphasis on the life cycle sustainability of the products,
required to minimise the amount of raw materials, packaging and embedded carbon.
encouraged to use environmentally ‘benign’ materials where possible.
required to maximise the use of recyclates.
required to maximise product life span and ease recycling at the end of life.
Energy Management
Suppliers and contractors are:
required to take reasonable steps to reduce, where possible, energy use on the Airport site for their direct operations and supply chains.
required to be proactive in enabling energy efficiency on the Airport site.
Modern slavery and human rights
Suppliers and contractors are:
required to comply with relevant modern slavery laws and have a transparent, proactive and robust approach to tackling labour exploitation and human rights abuses within its supply chain or otherwise within its business.
required to have carried out an assessment of risk of modern slavery in direct and supply chain operations and be acting to mitigate these risks.
required to have trained relevant employees on modern slavery risks and are encouraged to ensure their own supply chain has awareness of these risks too.
required to ensure employees working on the Airport’s behalf have access to a means for reporting an actual or suspected instance or risk of slavery or human trafficking.
required to report to the Airport any actual or suspected instance of modern slavery or human rights abuses which could impact the company. This includes any instances linked to the supplier/contractor’s direct operations or any instances linked to the supplier/contractor’s supply chain operations when those activities are being carried out on behalf of the Airport.
Community engagement
Suppliers and contractors are:
encouraged to form positive local relationships so that any issues can be resolved constructively and the direct benefit from significant capital investments can be shared with local communities.
encouraged to contribute to the community through donations, investments and volunteering initiatives.
encouraged to be a signatory to the Considerate Constructors Scheme (CCS).
required to provide reporting of community contributions, if requested by the Airport.
Local supply chains
Suppliers and contractors are:
required to have measures in place to maximise opportunities for local, people, supply chains and economies surrounding the Airport site.
required to provide details of spend with local suppliers and subcontractors, when requested by Airport (“Local” is defined as within a thirty mile radius of the Airport)
Skills development and learning
Suppliers and contractors are:
required to have in place education and employability programmes which promote the development of employee skills as well as local employment, including graduate programmes and apprenticeships.
required to provide reporting of training and apprenticeships programmes, if requested by the Airport.
Decarbonising transport
Suppliers and contractors are:
encouraged to offer low-carbon alternatives to petrol and diesel vehicles in tender proposals and utilise EV’s on the Airport site where possible.
encourage the use of public transport to the Airport site by employees and supply chain partners.