Sustainability Managers for Procurement / Supply Chain - APUC

Salary circa £40-45k (dependent on experience), considered at 1 FTE, 0.8 FTE and 0.4 FTE – with flexibility on working days / patterns

Location: Remote working with occasional travel to consortia / client institution / other work locations as required.

Sustainable procurement is a process whereby organisations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only to the organisation, but also to society and the local economy, whilst minimising damage to the environment.

The role of Sustainability Managers for Procurement / Supply Chain is an exciting opportunity for engaged sustainability or procurement professionals to make significant changes to the Higher and Further Education Sector’s procurement processes by value adding sustainability actions such as promoting and monitoring Human and Labour Rights, influencing suppliers in relation to their environmental impact, maximising social value, addressing the Climate and Ecological Emergency, reducing corruption.

The newly established UKUPC Responsible Procurement Shared Service (UKUPC-RPS), hosted by APUC, is looking to find engaged individuals to promote, support and deliver Sustainable Business activity and Responsible Procurement practices within the participating consortia, ie. APUC, NEUPC, NWUPC and TEC, as well as providing an appropriate representative and operational co-ordination role for best practice across the sector.

The post holders will be ambassadors for the client consortia and their institutions and will demonstrate the highest levels of professionalism and ethical behaviour. The roles are demanding and as the UKUPC Responsible Procurement Shared Service continues to develop to meet the dynamic needs of its client institutions, candidates with a strong work ethic are sought for these roles with the ability and desire to develop further as opportunities and challenges present themselves.

The post holders must be highly knowledgeable, engaged and invested in sustainability, in particular regarding the impacts of climate change and the development of a fairer, greener society locally and globally and have excellent interpersonal skills to engage and influence with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders and peers. The roles will play an important part in the delivery of a flexible/dynamic full supply chain management service across a broad range of work areas to both the client consortia and their stakeholders across the sector. Appropriate level of knowledge and experience of UK procurement directives, including incorporating sustainable procurement best practice into the procurement process including strategy, specifications and through contract management and the wider supply chain, is desired (but this aspect of the role can be developed in post). Enhanced knowledge of Sustainability matters is essential.

APUC offer regular training, career development and a variety of funding options to enable candidates to pursue professional and leadership qualifications. These new roles can be either at 1 FTE, 0.8 FTE or 0.4 FTE and offer generous holidays, flexible hours and working patterns, competitive remuneration, a positive working environment and pension arrangements with employer/employee contributions.

Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC) is the Centre of Procurement Expertise for all of Scotland’s Higher and Further Education Institutions working in partnership with them to support and enable sustainable innovation in procurement and shared service optimisation. APUC is part of the UK Universities Purchasing Consortia (UKUPC), which is a partnership between eight UK consortia who created a collective structure to support collaborative procurement within Higher and Further Education. All eight consortia work together to share knowledge and best practice, to support each other and the wider procurement community.

Owing to continuing development of our service delivery model and the need amongst others for a strong sector response to the Climate Change Emergency and human rights due diligence in supply chains, the following UKUPC consortia, in partnership with APUC, have created the “UKUPC-RPS” Responsible Procurement shared service to fully embrace the ethical and social factors in the sector’s supply chains and to play a key part in reducing the impacts from climate change:
  • The North Eastern Universities Purchasing Consortium’s (NEUPC)
  • The North Western Universities Purchasing Consortium (NWUPC)
  • The Energy Consortium (TEC)
NEUPC and the NWUPC are the regional purchasing consortia for all universities and the consortia’s associate members across the North of England with head offices in Leeds and Manchester respectively. Both provide collaborative procurement expertise, guidance and deliver framework agreements that are aligned to provide maximum value for money within the higher education and wider public sector as appropriate.

TEC focuses on collaborative procurement of both energy and water for universities and associate public bodies across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

If you are interested in applying please email your full CV (two pages maximum) to [email protected] along with covering letter (no more than one page), explaining why you feel you would like to work with UKUPC and in the particular role mentioned, noting your current salary level.

Further details can be found here.
 
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