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Nantes Métropole in Western France is home to 619 000 inhabitants (including 299 700 inhabitants in the City of Nantes). Over the last 25 years, the 24 cities composing the metropolitan area have transferred an increasing number of competences to the metropolitan level, including transport, energy, water and waste management, and economic development. To be more efficient, the decision was made to merge several teams from the City of Nantes and Nantes Métropole, including the public procurement team. Together the procurement budget is around €430 million per year (€120 million for the City of Nantes and €310 million for Nantes Métropole). Nantes aims at being at the forefront of economic, social, environmental and democratic transitions by inventing more responsible development models that involve all relevant stakeholders. In 2011, Nantes launched a multi-stakeholder platform for the promotion of corporate social responsibility. In 2013, it was named European Green Capital, in particular due to its ambitious transport policy which reintroduced electric trams, developed bicycle infrastructure, and reduced all measures of air pollution below limit values.

 In 2016, it organised Climate Chance, the first international summit of non-governmental actors engaged in the fight against climate change. Considering that public procurement is not only a technical decision, but has be in line with its political priorities, Nantes has developed numerous initiatives in the field of responsible procurement since 2001. These initiatives were integrated into its strategic policy documents, such as the city’s Sustainable Development Plan adopted in 2004, its sustainable development Agenda 21 and its Climate Plan adopted in 2009. Nantes welcomed that the role of public procurement in the achievement of social and environmental goals was recently strengthened in France with the passing of national laws on Social and Solidarity Economy (July 2014) and Energy Transition for Green Growth (August 2015).

These are part of a wider aim to mobilise the country’s largest public purchasers in line with the National Plan for Sustainable Purchasing (PNAD) and to make these policies intelligible to economic actors and operators. Nantes Métropole took these national legislations as an opportunity to strengthen its commitments and to reinforce their coherence. Each of these initiatives has been developed in partnership with the local economic networks in order to favour their acceptance, in particular among SMEs, and to develop tools and criteria that are easy to handle for companies, while contributing to a better social and environmental impact. Nantes is also actively involved in the exchange of best practices around responsible procurement with other public actors at the regional, the national and the European level. Cooperation is central to the Nantes SPP approach. As the area is governed via an intercommunal structure, the Ville de Nantes and the wider Nantes Métropole administrations must collaborate to manage local issues. By combining procurement functions, it is possible to make the buying exercise (and the final service) more efficient, and together the procurement budget is around €430 million per year (€120 million for Ville de Nantes and €310 million for Nantes Métropole).

1.      ‘To be more efficient, the decision was made to merge several teams from the City of Nantes and Nantes Métropole, including the public procurement team ‘Advise this company the importance of procurement department’. Advise this company why it should not merge procurement with other departments (5mks)

2.      Explain to this company the purchasing activities that the procurement department does (5mks)

3.      Tell this company through discussion five ethical issues they are likely to experience in purchasing process ( 5mks)

4.      Examine the sourcing process that this company can use (5mks)

5.      Discuss the selection of supplier’s procedures that this company can use (5mks)