Radboud University joins FIRA
The sustainability agenda of the Radboud University states that we are looking for suppliers that want to contribute to more sustainable public procurement. This goes beyond traditional issues like energy consumption and packaging. The Radboud University would like to challenge suppliers to work together towards optimal solutions in the area of:
- Social conditions in global supply chains
- Social return on investment (SROI)
- Green public procurement (GPP)
- Procurement of biobased products
- Circular purchasing
- Public Procurement of Innovation PPI)
- Opportunities for SMEs
These are of course noble terms and goals to include in a tender. Suppliers are perfectly capable of putting their good intentions on paper, but paper won't blush. In order not to get bogged down in creating a large monitoring system, the Purchasing Department of Radboud University, together with other universities, became a member of the so-called FIRA Platform.
The FIRA Platform is a digital registry where companies (suppliers) demonstrate their achievements in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to customers (buyers). The platform is closely aligned with international and national standards in the area of sustainability, such as ISO 26000, ISO 20400 DIS, AA1000 and GRI. FIRA verifies the CSR reports so that we know the information is reliable. The advantage is that a company only needs to go through this audit once to be certified for a range of customers. In this way, Radboud University also meets the requirement of having to audit the suppliers it has contracted through a tender on their performance in terms of sustainability.
The suppliers of goods, services or works that we select ourselves, can assess with FIRA how they perform in terms of sustainability (list of suppliers in the Nijmegen area). In line with the intentions of Radboud University, we thus reward companies that are in the vanguard of corporate social responsibility and contribute to achieving the objectives of the Radboud University .