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Add community benefit requirements to procurement policies
BUILDING AND FACILITY MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR SERVICES
Segment Family Class
72
11
0
SDG Alignment
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
SDG Target
8.3
Target Description
Promote policies to support job creation and growing enterprises
Level of Effort
Level of Effort Scale
2
1 -Quick Wins: solution involves adding criteria for the good or service being purchased (ex: certifications), minimal internal process changes.
2 -Long Term Adoption: solution requires some changes to internal processes and/or more capital investment (ex: digital transformation to reduce paper use).
3 – Disruptive Opportunities: requires significant investment and changes to internal processes (ex: retrofitting building)
Category Assessment
Assessment
A Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) is a contractual obligation used when procuring public goods that is designed to secure specific social benefits, such as employment or education with the purpose of enriching the community by improving social, cultural, environmental, and economic prospects.
•Evaluate or create an enterprise-wide sustainability strategy that is aligned with your values and overall business strategy. This should be based upon Sustainable Development Goals relevant to the organization and stakeholder input. Prioritize goals according to need and potential impact compared to resources required.
•Determine current spend on relevant KPIs, such as dollar amount spend on indigenous procurement, hours spent training community members, or contribution to community enhancement projects. Set a clear strategy with goals for your Community Benefit Program that will improve these KPIs.
•Review contracts to determine a threshold in which past a certain dollar amount, a community benefit requirement clause will be triggered.
Opportunity Identification
Business: Potential tax deductions for involvement with registered charities or grants through the government (ex. Low Carbon Economy fund, Canadian Job Grant). Strengthen partnerships with key suppliers, increase brand awareness and customer loyalty, access new labour and supplier markets, and create space for innovation.
Sustainability: Decouple economic growth and environmental and social degradation. Directly improve the environment and lives of those impacted by your business by upskilling the labour pool, increasing resource efficiencies, supporting students, etc.
Strategy Build & Execution
•Diligently monitor opportunities for government funding in the form of grants or tax deductions. This will ease any financial strain when pursuing the project and align your sustainability strategy with the wider community.
•Prior to each procurement activity, conduct a needs assessment to identify potential opportunities and risks associated with pursuing a community benefit requirement. This should be determined through stakeholder consultation and remain relevant to the activity’s life-cycle assessment.
•Keep uneven bargaining power in mind when evaluating suppliers.
•When selecting suppliers, assess if the operator is suitable to fulfil the community benefit requirement. For example, comprehensive staff training programs can signal the company's ability to fulfil a community benefit requirement aimed at upskilling young people.
•Add a community benefit requirement into the specification. When evaluating offers weigh ability to fulfil this requirement appropriately according to scope, potential impact, and urgency.
Supplier Negotiation & Contract
•Collaborate with suppliers to identify shared values to base the negotiation on and demonstrate how fulfilling a community benefit requirement will benefit both parties.
•Determine appropriate KPIs and negotiate a timeline to fulfil the community benefit requirement. If timelines or targets are missed by either party, the contract should include clear steps for renegotiation or reinforcing terms.
•For contracts that will be renewed introduce the community benefit framework to suppliers well in advance. Collaborate with these suppliers to fulfil a community benefit requirement.
Supplier Performance & Management
•Require reporting on KPIs at regular intervals to improve the creation of requirements in the future and ensure the effectiveness of the project at hand.
•Annually update total community benefit requirements that have been fulfilled in a sustainable procurement report to continually improve on your sustainability strategy. Annually update total community benefit requirements that have been fulfilled in a sustainable procurement report to continually improve on your sustainability strategy.
Resource Links
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