Hi Reader, what do you associate with procurement?
For many people, it’s a technical term linked to paperwork and frustration.
However, my goal is to show that procurement is much more tangible, and often simpler, than it seems.
Let’s start by exploring what more sustainable purchasing of lab equipment involves and why it matters to you:
Today's Lesson: Understanding Procurement
What sustainable purchasing means and why it matters
Number of the Day
Procurement, the purchasing and obtaining of items, often causes the largest footprint in research institutions and scientific organizations. Millipore Sigma found that 60.1% of their footprint is attributable to procurement related emissions. For companies like Thermo Fisher, this number is almost 70% as reported in a deep dive by the Sustainable Procurement Pledge. For many universities, this number lies between 50–80%. But what does that mean and what can we do?
60.1
Why Sustainable Procurement Matters
Sustainable purchasing and obtaining of laboratory equipment is crucial because it strongly influences our overall footprint.
Footprint analyses consistently find that the Scope 3 emissions tied to purchased goods can account for 60–90% of total emissions.
If you are interested, I shared the basics of conducting a carbon footprint analysis before. Please consider that even if your Scope 3 emissions were only 30%, they would likely still be among the top five largest impact categories.
Beyond the emissions themselves, it's also the investment in one manufacturer over another with which we shape the future.
Every purchasing decision supports a specific type of company and innovation.
Regulations, Obligations & Opportunities
Companies are increasingly obliged to measure and report their emissions, especially those related to procurement.
In Europe, for example, the CSRD requires extensive reporting on sustainability practices.
Click to enlarge. This blog from tanso provides a very nice overview of how complex reporting on Scope 3 emissions can seem, given the many categories involved, including those related to procurement. In essence, it’s not the most complex task, but it does require proper preparation.
Suppliers, contract labs, biotech, and pharmaceutical companies are increasingly required by their partners and customers to report sustainability data both to meet expectations and because those partners must report themselves.
Universities face similar pressure, as funding bodies request information on sustainable operations where procurement plays a central role.
Click to enlarge. You can read more about Wellcome's policies here. As roughly estimated by De Paepe et al., this is a very important category for labs.
> Importantly, Wellcome Trust UK even provides additional funding to offset the costs of more sustainable equipment.
While missing out on these optimizations can cost money, early adopters can gain a branding advantage.
What It Could Mean for You
As you know, my goal is to connect sustainability with your scientific and organizational benefit.
More sustainable purchasing strategies offer three key advantages:
First, they streamline internal processes by clarifying who purchases what, when, and where - saving both time and resources.
Second, they reduce habitual purchasing by encouraging evaluation of which products truly perform best. While this should be intuitive, it often isn’t, as suppliers don’t always clearly communicate performance beyond core marketing claims.
Third, they improve supply resilience, ensuring you receive what you need, when you need it.
These benefits are simple, which is exactly why they’re often underestimated.
Therefore, I thought it could be valuable to explore the three main domains you can leverage to drive change and become compliant with all current regulations:
1. Measuring and Reporting
To report means understanding the impacts of your purchases. The first part of it is identifying, quantifying, and monitoring footprints.
The second part is creating strategies and documenting the principles you apply to make procurement more sustainable.
Of course, to implement these things, you will often need to get in touch with suppliers and change processes internally.
2. Purchasing Decisions
Now we come to a point that we are all familiar with: purchasing the more sustainable product.
However, many scientists and institutions still overlook existing alternatives because they are not always properly advertised (and, honestly, because we often assume they don’t exist).
If you require conventional plastics, second generation bioplastics such as those from Eppendorf (using plant oil waste instead of fossil fuels to produce Polypropylene) are available.
While Eppendorf was able to source 100% of their polypropylene parts from biobased sources, they are at 77% for the polycarbonate frame of the PCR plates. Here, you can read more about Eppendorf’s biobased portfolio.
Equally important is how you purchase - i.e., supplier location, procurement frequency, and coordination across departments.
While buying in larger quantities less often can reduce costs and footprints, better distribution systems prevent items from being lost or hard to locate, saving both time and money.
Supplier selection criteria are an often overlooked lever.
This is a screenshot from the website of the National University of Singapore and their sustainable procurement practices. Notably, sustainability doesn’t need (and, in my opinion shouldn’t) become your main purchasing criterion, but it should help tip the balance, especially when factors such as higher efficiency (e.g., reduced reagent use, lower sample requirements, or more efficient energy consumption) lead to savings that might otherwise be overlooked.
While most institutions filter according to performance and price, sustainability can be included as an additional criterion.
Applying the Knowledge
The key to moving beyond the lofty idea of “sustainable purchasing” is to rethink procurement.
We have to understand it as part of how we organize our laboratory processes, not just bureaucratic decisions.
Still, in science, we often face more challenges than in other areas.
What actually constitutes the “more sustainable product” is often more complex than it might first seem.
Even more challenging are the strict requirements around quality, features, and logistics (such as cold transport) that we must consider.
In my opinion, procurement decisions must align closely with scientific needs.
The Sustainable Procurement Pledge initiative has put together a fantastic compilation of how companies have conceptualized and implemented changes to reduce their impacts. Beyond their deep dive, you can read about the actions of AstraZeneca and Pfizer here.
This is why institutions benefit from working with advisors that can combine sustainability knowledge with lab-specific expertise.
For all younger scientists, the first steps are:
Awareness: keep your eyes open for new innovations, as some companies don’t consider sustainability relevant for their marketing.
Second, the next time you search for an item for 30 minutes or realize something has gone missing, remember that sustainability is there to lend you a helping hand.
How We Feel Today
References
De Paepe, M., et al., 2024. Purchases dominate the carbon footprint of research laboratories. PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, 3(7), e0000116. doi:10.1371/journal.pstr.0000116.
Penndorf, P., et al., 2023. A new approach to making scientific research more efficient – rethinking sustainability. FEBS Letters, 597(19), pp.2371–2374. doi:10.1002/1873-3468.14736.
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Edited by Patrick Penndorf Connection@ReAdvance.com Lutherstraße 159, 07743, Jena, Thuringia, Germany Data Protection & Impressum If you think we do a bad job: Unsubscribe
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