Procurement and supply chain

Essex & Suffolk Water depends on thousands of suppliers for the provision of works, goods and services to maintain the high level of frontline services that our customers expect. We spends millions of pounds with our suppliers every year through various long term Framework Agreements and Call Off Contracts, through to the direct placing of Purchase Orders with suppliers and the use of Purchasing Cards for low-level transactional uses.

Our Procurement Action Plan continues to focus on building effective partnerships with our supply chain to identify improvement opportunities and develop innovative solutions which benefit all parties as well as society and the customers we serve. Key elements of the plan include:

• Ensuring that all business partners are treated with fairness and transparency.

• Focusing on areas where we have a high impact on society or the environment: areas of high spend and products that involve a large amount of capital expenditure.

• Reviewing the works, goods and services we procure to ensure that they reflect a real need and that specifications include social and environmental criteria early in the process.

• Assessing our suppliers on the basis of social and environmental criteria, in addition to the financial ones.

• Ensuring that all new suppliers are reviewed on their financial, health and safety, environmental and insurance records and performance.

• Seeking to lead and support the local and economic development of the communities we serve and, to this end; we will use local suppliers where possible.

• Communicating our approach to our suppliers and engage with them on how improvement scan be achieved, working in partnership where appropriate.

• Reviewing the policy annually to ensure that it is in accordance with the principles stated in our Sustainable Development Policy.

It is essential that our supply chain partners both understand our approach to creating a more sustainable future and fully supports our sustainable procurement agenda. It is our intention to work with our suppliers, thereby making a difference together.

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NWL standard conditions for purchase of goods or services