Responsible Procurement

The University of Reading spends approximately £132 million per annum (24/25 figures, excludes staff costs) on goods, services and works and is fully committed providing responsible procurement operations and leveraging our supply chain to benefit the University and our community. The University is committed to achieving the highest standards of environmental performance, preventing pollution and minimising the impact of its operations.

The Responsible Procurement works aims to contribute to the University of Reading Strategy and we work closely with internal colleagues from a wide range of teams including Estates, Sustainability, Technical Services and Catering. We also work with our suppliers and external colleagues on a number of consortia, collaborative initiatives, working groups and boards. 

The University has the following Responsible Procurement Goals:

Environmental Sustainability & Carbon Management	Work closely with the Sustainability Team to contribute to the UoR Environmental Sustainability and Energy Policies and contribute to the University's Net Zero 2030 Carbon Plan.
Equality and Diversity	Diversify our supplier chain with organisations that promote equal, diverse, safe and fair workplaces for their employees. Please refer to the University's Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement.
Ethical Sourcing	Ensure the products and services being sourced are obtained in a responsible and sustainable way, where ethical policies and procedures are in place during the manufacturing and sourcing process. All suppliers must ensure their own sourcing practices and procedures comply with the Equality Act 2010. We also aim to increase the number of local suppliers we work with each year.
Social Value	Ensure that we look beyond the price of each individual contract and consider the collective benefit and value of our purchasing to the local community.

Responsible Procurement Workstreams

As part of our Responsible Procurement work we aim to establish clear areas of procurement-related focus for each academic year. We provide annual updates on this page on the progress we've made on each of our workstreams.

These workstreams help us carry on the valuable work we have done in recent years and streamline our Responsible Procurement work in each academic year.

Our 2026/27 Workstreams are: 

• Scope 3 Emissions – Encourage more of our suppliers to contribute their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions data to the new Net Zero Supplier Tool created by NetPositive Futures (NPF). 

• Circular Economy – Continue to integrate circular economy into our operations and those of our suppliers, funders and other HE organisations to reduce waste, circulate materials and regenerate nature, particularly in the Estates, Catering, IT and Labs areas. 

• Collaboration within the HE Community – Continue initiatives with the HE Procurement consortia to influence suppliers, reduce duplication of effort by universities and present a consistent approach to responsible procurement policy, operational processes, sustainable purchasing and reporting across the HE sector.  

• UoR as Responsible Consumers – Increase our efforts through tendering, supplier and contract management and involvement with external organisations such as Electronics Watch, Fairtrade Foundation, Sustainable Restaurant Foundation, NetPositive Futures to make more responsible, sustainable and local choices. 

You can find an update on our Responsible Procurement activity during 2025/26 here.

 

What we are doing in Procurement

Environment

The University of Reading won the Big Sustainability Awards' Carbon Reduction Project of the Year in October 2021. Procurement was involved in this project which was funded by Salix Finance, along with colleagues from the Sustainability team, to help the University of Reading to reduce its carbon emissions. 

The University has reduced its in-scope carbon emissions by 61% in 2022/23 against our 2008/09 baseline, has achieved a recycling rate of over 60%, and diverts over 98% of operational waste away from landfill. In addition, our main campus has achieved the Green Flag award 15 times in a row for its outstanding green space. Procurement works closely with the Sustainability and Waste Management teams to ensure the best commitments from our suppliers.

We have also invested significantly into improving new build standards ensuring that they meet BREAAM 'Very Good' or better, whilst incorporating low carbon technologies where possible. To ensure the equipment in buildings is as efficient as possible, Procurement has worked with the Estates team to have a programme of works to identify inefficient equipment, such as fume cupboards, and upgrading them to improve energy efficiency.

We are continually improving our environmental performance with the use of both an Environmental Management System (EMS) and an Energy Management System (EnMS) certified to ISO14001 and ISO50001 respectively. The EMS covers aspects such as emissions to air, water use, waste and recycling, energy, transport and travel and use of raw materials. Procurement is represented on the boards overseeing the EMS and our overall University Environmental Sustainability policy. 

We have moved to responsible disposal and recycling of IT equipment in partnership with our Digital Technology Systems team. 

We are making conscious efforts to reduce travel and associated carbon emissions in travel to and from campus and for business travel as part of the University Sustainable Travel Policy.

Workforce

We aim for minimum supplier buying standards for workers' and animal welfare, sustainability and waste management in our tender evaluations.

• Charter marks - The University of Reading is proud to receive recognition for our work in supporting staff and students in underrepresented groups.

• Fairtrade - committed to paying fair prices to workers in our supply chain and selling Fairtrade products in our catering outlets and on-campus grocer, Co-op

• Electronics Watch - committed to collaboration with civil society monitors in production regions to protect the rights of workings in their supply chains in sectors including IT, low emission vehicles

Community

Where possible we aim to incorporate Social Value deliverables into contracts with our suppliers to ensure that they are also making a positive impact in their communities. The University of Reading is consciously working with more local and SME suppliers in IT, Professional Services and Catering. Approximately 21% of our spend in 2024/25 was with suppliers in the Reading RG post code - up from 18% the year before. 

The University of Reading Catering Sustainable Food Policy and Framework is an excellent example of how we work with micro, small, medium-sized local and regional suppliers to improve our operations and menu offering for students. 

Your Role as a Supplier 

As a supplier, you have a crucial role to play in helping us achieve our responsible procurement targets. We aim to allocate approximately 10% of the total weighting of tender evaluation scores to responsible procurement criteria. We review responsible procurement practices with our suppliers at contract award, regular supplier review meetings and contract renewal stages.

Suppliers must also commit to our Supplier Code of Conduct which includes social, environmental and ethical compliance requirements.

Environmental & Energy Policy

The goods or services you supply will impact our environmental and energy performance and it's your responsibility to ensure this is managed in accordance with University Environmental and Energy Policy. It is important that you make all staff working on behalf of the University aware of this policy and ensure they know that they must comply with our EnMS and EMS.

Furthermore, if the environment and energy procedures are followed, it reduces the risk of non-compliance with environmental legislation and helps us to protect the environment.

Where we are purchasing equipment that may have a significant impact on the University's energy usage, the tender will partly be evaluated on the basis of energy performance. To find out more about the University's relevant policies and management systems, visit our Sustainability web pages.

If you require further information on your role as a supplier in terms of sustainability, details of our policies and management systems, please email sustainability@reading.ac.uk.

Modern Slavery Policy

The University of Reading is committed to improving our practices to combat slavery and human trafficking. The University of Reading Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement sets out the steps the University has undertaken, and is continuing to take to ensure that modern slavery or human trafficking is not taking place within our organisation or supply chain. It is expected that our suppliers will also commit to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking.

Efficiencies

We encourage suppliers to help us improve our management systems and purchasing processes. We welcome suggestions on how this can be done and we love to hear about the efforts that our suppliers are making to be more responsible, environmentally sustainable and community oriented.