Workstream 3 - Reducing consumption based emissions
3.1 The roll out of the additional 10% environmental weighting (taking the total social value weighting to 30%) is now standard within all procurement documentation and is being applied to all new tenders. The policy allows for some flexibility in exceptional circumstances. Procurement officers are providing support to commissioners to ensure the 30% social value weighting is being applied. A new questionnaire template will be introduced to reinforce the new measures as well as capture specific performance indicators for bidders to make commitments against. The next step is to establish a process to manage and monitor the social value element of contracts.
3.2 The Commissioning and Procurement Team are working closely with Highways and Information Communications Team to provide support to identify carbon efficiencies and identify key areas where emissions can be monitored and further reductions in emissions made.
3.3 The Events and Waste teams are looking at options for dedicated waste collections at events, with the aim to reduce single use plastics (SUPs), increase recycling and to enable the monitoring of waste at events. A new pilot project in the Waste team began in February to review how the supply and demand of wheeled bins can be improved to reduce plastic waste. This involved a trial with the wheeled bin supplier to recycle the plastic from old bins as content for new bins.
Work continues with traders across our markets to reduce the use of SUPs. The use of SUPs by traders now forms part of the decision-making process for new letting agreements. Markets also have a broader, comprehensive climate change plan looking at all aspects of their operations.
Whilst the Council have implemented Government legislation on SUPs across the operational estates, we are exploring what more can be done to move us towards being Single Use Plastic Free by 2024.
3.4 There are a range of resources produced by the Council to support organisations, including a Supplier Toolkit that the Procurement and Integrated Commissioning team has produced to support suppliers responding to the 10% environmental weighting. A suite of Sustainable Events Guides for event organisers and a recently launched Zero Carbon Culture Guide aimed at supporting the culture sector to decarbonise can be found on the Council’s website. These resources are being promoted to staff and external partners.
3.5 The funding criteria to apply for the Community Events Fund 2022-23 (£150k) has been amended to capture environmental impact and allow for:
- strengthening the use of the Sustainable Events Guides
- benchmarking carbon footprints
- identifying where SUPs are being used
Training and capacity building will be provided to support funded events. Additional steps to be taken include, how to align externally delivered events with the ‘Single Use Plastic Free Pledge’.
The Events team has also been progressing the Power Project (having mains power across public realm spaces within the city centre and parks to reduce the reliance on diesel generators at events). The scoping phase of the project began in January 2022 looking at the technical requirements needed for mains power upgrade, along with costings and potential carbon savings across events. Once scoping is complete the next steps of this project will be explored.
3.6 There has been ongoing engagement with FoodSync, the Manchester Climate Change Agency and the Council’s Zero Carbon team, to understand the priorities of the Manchester Food Board and how the Council, and the Agency’s update of the Climate Change Framework 2.0 can support these priorities.