Liane Hartley: “Bridge”
A new website aimed at encouraging construction professionals to procure their projects more responsibly by adopting ethical sourcing and fair employment practices is being launched next week.
The Source RP site aims to provide a centre of excellence for responsible procurement in the built environment. It’s being launched by Liane Hartley of Mend Consulting, an adviser to Crossrail on ethical sourcing.
Hartley explained: “At Mend, we have been advising clients on social sustainability, responsible procurement, stakeholder engagement and social value, most notably on Crossrail. We regularly come across clients and practitioners grappling with how to implement responsible procurement [RP] on complex infrastructure and construction projects.
“So we felt there needed to be a space for us to come together as an industry and share issues and experience. This way, we can all benefit from accelerating towards knowing how to do things differently and better.”
Hartley said that responsible procurement can be defined as “using construction investment as an opportunity for levering better social, environmental and economic impacts and outcomes than would otherwise be achieved and is becoming increasingly demanded by clients.”
Typically, RP issues cover social value, ethical sourcing, sustainable employment, equality and diversity, fair employment, community engagement and supply chain diversity.
The new website, www.sourcerp.org.uk, aims to help professionals in the built environment industry and beyond connect, share and learn with other people and organisations, and provide a space for exploring new ideas, tools, processes for delivering RP. The underlying objective would be to create an RP network and centre of excellence, with a focus on social value.
Crossrail’s suppliers must demonstrate they are sourcing ethically, for example that no child labour is being used
Source RP will also hold events, deliver consultancy and research and support to organisations and companies and people on specific things and offer training and workshops. Membership of the network is free and open to anyone interested in RP in the built environment.
Hartley says it will be a “bridge to bring people together from a spectrum of audiences and interests and challenge conventions on how to deliver RP successfully. We want to help RP be an integral part of a business’s mind-set and operating culture instead of a box ticking exercise.”
“Source RP will provide a platform to exchange and find information; events with opportunities to meet and share; training to learn from our peers; and a network to find partners for projects and initiatives. This way, we can all benefit from accelerating towards knowing how to think and do things differently and better.”
For more information contact [email protected] www.linkedin.com/groups/Source-RP-6537992?trk=my_groups-b-grp-v
Comments are closed.