Multnomah County assists our procurement professionals in best value purchasing by providing our Sustainable Purchasing and Social Equity Policy. Best Value drivers are cost reductions, risk reduction, and revenue growth.
To better understand why we have focused on Sustainability and Social Equity we must first understand these definitions.
- Sustainability is defined as the aspiration to ensure meeting the needs of today does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs tomorrow.
- Equity: Equity ensures that everyone has the resources to succeed. This means in Central Purchasing we provide resources for individuals to succeed throughout the supply chain.
Equity factors affect social systems on which our communities locally and globally depend on, now and in the future. Equity is providing resources for success which may take many forms in the supply chain. In providing a resource we want to pay particular attention to race, class, gender, disability, Veteran Status, Immigration History, and personal experiences to ensure culturally responsive and specific needs are met.
These are a few example of how resources can be provided to individuals in our supply chain from the vendors we solicit.
- resources for success of small businesses
- diversity/equal opportunity
- equal remuneration
- fair trade
- grievance and remedy processes
- human, indigenous rights upheld in the harvesting and manufacturing processes
- occupational health and safety
- sustainable compensation
- right to collective bargaining
- Watch this video called, "Breaking Barriers: Social Equity Within the Supply Chain".
Our Sustainable Purchasing and Social Equity Policy also states we practice the triple bottom line of sustainability which means we bring in considerations of the environment, equity, and economic impacts into goods and services we procure. We focused on equity because we want to provide resources for our employees to succeed in practicing this policy and in turn support equity with the goods and services we procure in our supply chains.
Asking questions about the environment, equity, and economic impacts are critical as we start our market research to ensure we are purchasing goods and services sustainability.
No idea where to start?
Here are a few tools and resources to help you make a more sustainable purchasing decisions for Multnomah County.
- Responsible Business Practices follow the Triple Bottom Line of Sustainability: Environment, Social Equity, and Economic Impacts.
-
The County's Sustainable Purchasing and Social Equity Policy requires that a Sustainable Purchasing Checklist is submitted to Purchasing for each procurement over $10,000.
You must submit a completed checklist for all procurements via our webform in order to proceed with your purchase. For intermediate procurements, you will receive MWESB search results after approval of the checklist.
Sustainability Checklists that represent the Responsible Business Practices in our solicitations. Our Sustainability Checklists are now on the Multco Commons and you can click on the links to be directed to them below. If you have any questions please contact Central Purchasing Staff you work with or our Sustainable Purchasing Coordinator.- PUR-1 Personal Services
- PCRB Non-Personal Services
- PCRB Goods
- PUR-10 Clean Air Construction Standards (154.07 KB)
- Look at this Checklist Guide Sustainable Purchasing Checklist Guide and Planning Help (149.13 KB)
- Look at the Healthy Purchasing Guide Healthy Purchasing Guide (103.53 KB)
How are the responsible business practices (sustainability) scored? Below is an example of how the formula works and if you have any questions please contact our Sustainable Purchasing Coordinator or any Central Purchasing staff member for assistance. We are all here for you!
Take the points you are allocating to the non-sustainability questions:
For example, if you start with 200 points for the other questions: those 200 points equal 75% of the total points. You will need to find out what the total points will be:
200/75% or 200/0.75 = 267 Total Points
So, 67 points equals the 25% of the total points for our current policy/procedure.
View the PUR-8 Policy - Sustainable Purchasing and Social Equity Policy (131.08 KB)
