Enlarge

Sustainable procurement

At the Met Office, procurement is far more than a contract between 2 companies. We have a sustainable procurement policy.

Supply contracts

The Met Office procurement team works within a framework of legislative and best practice standards

We aim to mitigate the environmental and social impact of our procured goods and services.

We form part of the UK-wide Sustainable Procurement Task Force which aims to work to best practice standards.

We also have accreditation from the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS).

This recognises that our procurement team is fully qualified to handle corporate governance, risk management and other professional practices.

We also work with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and the third sector.

We encourage their participation in fulfilling our our supply requirements.

We have removed barriers these organisations often face during a tender process.

We favour 'buy local, sell local'.

Wherever possible we purchase goods and services from suppliers who also have sound ethical and environment policies.

Our commitment to buying ethical goods and services includes all the drinks that are available at Exeter HQ. Fairtrade items are available from our shop, restaurant, cafes and vending machines.

Transparency of our operations and customer enquiries

We support the government commitment to operational transparency and have made our contract and expenditure data available to view.

We endeavour to understand and meet the needs of our customers.

We aim for customer satisfaction and respond to feedback, whether positive or negative.

Supplying us with sustainable travel options

We are proud to be working with Capita Business Travel.

Capita supply us with business travel solutions to help achieve the following objectives.#

• Provide a responsible travel management programme
• Remove direct booking costs
• Reduce the overall cost of travel
• Provide the ability to capture and report on CO₂

Capita travel feature (PDF, 294 kB)  

Sustainability Summary 2010/11 (PDF, 4 MB)