Sustainable procurement action plan is go

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After being chivvied along to release it at a recent conference at the ICE (and by myself on environment secretary David Miliband's blog) the Government has now released its sustainable procurement action plan. A statement issued by DEFRA yesterday confirmed the aim to make the Government estate carbon neutral by 2012 and to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2020. There's also a plan to set mandatory environmental product standads so that departments procure the most sustainable commodities. For the full plan go here.

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I've had a look through the executive summary and here are the key points:

• Leadership - There will be a ministerial committee in overall charge chaired by the Prime Minister. The environment secretary will be the lead minister and the head of the civil service will oversee delivery

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Budgeting/accounting - There will be simpler guidance on the Treasury Green Book. Departments can raise their their case with Treasury if an affordability constraint appears to prevent them from choosing a sustainable solution. The Office of Government Commerce will look to embed sustainability in its Gateway procurement process

Raising standards - One real example given. From 1 April 2009 only timber or timber products originating from independently verified legal/sustainable sources or from a licensed Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) partner will be used for the Government estate - appropriate documents will be needed to prove it

Capturing innovation - The DTI will work cross-Government to stimulate innovation in public procurment. Good luck on that one.

Scrutiny - This main watchdog on this will be the Sustainable Development Commission, which will deliver a health check on how things are progressing next year

The plan will affect £60bn of the £150bn public sector market - the remaining £90bn is in local government/authorities. The Government said it was seeking responses from these bodies to the plan this summer.