Sustainable production and consumption
As a large organisation, the way we procure goods and services and the way we invest our funds can have a significant impact on the world around us.
We want to make sure that we use sustainably minded sources and that we consume resources in a sustainable way.
We're building strong relationships with our suppliers, so that we can reduce our environmental impact together.
Procurement and supplier relationships
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We recognise the need to be responsible in our choice of suppliers and understanding of the life cycle of what we buy. The principles behind our procurement policies aim to:
- Appoint environmentally responsible suppliers
- Take a long-term partnership approach with key suppliers to reduce our joint environmental impact
- Endeavour to purchase goods and services with the least environmental impact during their life cycle
- Reduce paper-based transactions within the purchase cycle
- Support local businesses and local economy wherever possible
- The University is a member of the North Eastern Universities' Purchasing Consortium (NEUPC) who, together with Sustainable Procurement Centre of Excellence, produced a NEUPC SPCE Sustainable Procurement Policy (PDF
, 78kb). We subscribe to the principles included in this document. - Our York Print Plus project replaced personal printers with multi-functional devices shared by offices to reduce paper, consumables and power usage
- Our business travel service SLA encourages the use of a single supplier to enable us to accurately measure our carbon footprint from business travel
- Our e-purchasing system is reducing paper transactions and building up a chosen supplier base with known sustainability credentials
- Our Design and Print team use FSC certified paper and water-based inks for their printed materials.
If you are a member of staff, you may also find the information contained in our sustainable procurement guidelines useful.
If you are a current or potential supplier you should be aware the University encourages all organisations to register with the NETPositives Engagement tool.
Food procurement
With a large number of YCL (Commerical Services) food outlets, we have an obligation to deliver food and dispose of its waste responsibly.
- Our outlets offer a range of products based on raw materials from ethical and sustainable sources
- All our fresh eggs are 'Lion Branded' free range
- We purchase most of our raw materials from regional suppliers
- Most of our meat comes fresh from the region, from suppliers demonstrating the highest animal welfare standards
- Our fish comes from suppliers following the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. We do not purchase endangered species.
- We're working with local suppliers to reduce food packaging
- We sell food that would otherwise go to waste in our outlets at discounted rate
The NETpositive tool
Working with NETPostive Futures, we've introduced a tool for suppliers to generate their own bespoke Sustainability Action Plan. It's free, easy to use and allows organisations to:
- Undertake a simple sustainability analysis of business impacts
- Create a bespoke plan to become more sustainable, in-line with Provider Organisation aspirations
- Find supporting, business-relevant sustainability information
- Demonstrate progress against their individual action plans
- Use the plan to communicate what they are actually doing, not just what they're committed to at a policy level
The YORCUP scheme
- The cups are made in the UK from a supplier based in Doncaster, ensuring our support of the local economy. In 2023, over 10,000 students and staff have joined the scheme, helping to reduce our campus use of single-use plastic coffee cups by over 1 million since the start of the YORCUP scheme.
Coffee cup recycling bins
If you don't have a YORCUP or your own reusable cup and find yourself needing to use a disposable one, look out for the giant coffee cup shaped bins on campus!
The bins are here to collect your single-use cups, ready for them to be recycled and the materials used again. Since their introduction, we have recycled over 39,000 single-use coffee cups with the help of Forge Recycling.
Remember, using disposable cups will mean you're subject to paying the latte levy.
'Bottle up' reusable water bottles
In November 2022 we stopped selling single-use plastic water bottles in 8 of our campus outlets alongside YUSU. We have replaced them with Bottle up's reusable bottles that are made from sugar cane, which is a renewable resource. They’re carbon neutral, recyclable, and best of all, totally reusable.
- In September 2022 we gave each fresher (living on campus) a free reusable water bottle funded by the Latte Levy.
Find out more about the bottles, Bottle up and their mission