Procurement with Purpose Newsletter No 124, July 1st 2025, with reverse mentoring, UN sustainable procurement, heat domes and Warwickshire
It is July already and now the nights are drawing in (I love pointing that out).
Given that there is less going on for me to comment on during July and August, I think the newsletter will be fortnightly for those two months. But I will publish more individual articles and posts on LinkedIn particularly is something big happens in the world of sustainable procurement. In the meantime, I have emptied five of my eight water butts in the garden to keep my vegetables alive through the heat and drought… please rain soon! Although my grandson is enjoying the hot weather…
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A good idea!
Many organisations are wondering what they can do on the diversity and inclusion front without upsetting Trumpists or indeed breaking equality laws. Some have announced the closure of programmes, others are going for rebranding, and some are just sticking two fingers up to the anti-DEI brigade. To be clear, I have never liked the more extreme, discriminatory diversity approaches, but it would be a great shame if we lose all the good things that DEI has brought.
So here’s a good idea. ‘Todays conveyancer’ website (what do you mean you don’t read it! Top of my list every morning…) reports it like this.
A ‘reverse mentoring’ toolkit developed by LawCare and the University of Leeds aims to help law firms and legal organisations become more inclusive, supportive and fair places to work. The term refers to junior employees or people from under-represented backgrounds mentoring more senior colleagues to share lived experiences and challenge traditional hierarchies.
Of course, this can be done by any organisation, and it is not a new idea. But I do think any senior executive would benefit by having a younger person from their organisation to bring some different perspectives, and if that person is different in terms of sex, race, background, neurodiversity or whatever, then so much the better. I think when I was in senior roles, I probably spent more time talking to my junior staff than most bosses. But I would have found reverse mentoring valuable, I’m sure. Back to the report:
The toolkit gives step-by-step advice for setting up a reverse mentoring programme, helping legal employers understand how reverse mentoring works, enable honest conversations, support mentors and mentees and avoid common mistakes.
And it can be downloaded here as a PDF. I’ll have a look at it and maybe say more next week.
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United Nations launches sustainable procurement initiative
This is exciting… maybe… The United Nations Global Compact is a ‘voluntary initiative based on CEO commitments to implement universal sustainability principles and to take steps to support UN goals’.
And on June 17th, the Compact launched the Coalition for Sustainable Procurement, a “groundbreaking initiative to elevate procurement as a central lever for advancing sustainable business and driving business value and competitiveness. Anchored in the UN Global Compact’s Sustainable Supply Chains & SMEs Programme, the Coalition brings together companies committed to embedding sustainability across their procurement practices — ensuring that supply chains are not only more efficient, but also more equitable, inclusive and resilient”.
The idea is to bring together CPOs, CSOs (Chief Sustainability Officers), and public sector leaders to shape a future that is aligned with the UN SDGs (sustainable development goals). There is a big kick-off meeting in New York on September 23rd, where the founding member firms will be announced during a public / private sector roundtable. The Coalition will also release a ‘State of Sustainable Procurement ‘ analysis this year, build a practical framework and create guidance and tools for implementation. (I hope they have a copy of my book handy...)
We should applaud this of course but I can’t help feeling it all sounds fairly similar to the Sustainable Procurement Pledge approach and work, and the SPP has four years or so of output already in the bag. I don’t see the two initiatives competing, but we will have to see what the UN work adds to the picture. There is a lot of resource out there now – from books like mine and Jonathan O’Brien’s, the SPP material and a lot more, but of course it is good to see more collaboration.
I’ll keep an eye on this in the coming months anyway. And ‘organizations interested in supporting or learning more about the Coalition for Sustainable Procurement are welcome to reach out to the UN Global Compact Sustainable Supply Chains & SMEs Team at supplychainsandsmes@unglobalcompact.org.
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What is a Heat Dome (and please can it go away?)
The mercury is hitting 32C near London as I write this, and it is (just) still June so it may well get hotter. But that’s nothing compared to New York where temperatures hit 100F (38C) last week for the first time since 2013, as a heat dome “crushed” the eastern side of the US, reported the Associated Press. Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston all also surpassed the 100F mark too, as did the northerly state of Maine, which is very unusual.
Heat domes happen when atmospheric high pressure in the upper atmosphere pushes back down against the heat rising from the earth’s surface, trapping the heat. It usually stays hot and humid at night too in the ‘dome’, which is debilitating for humans if we can’t sleep or rest properly. In some parts of the US, average nighttime temperatures have risen further than daytime over recent years, exacerbating the effects. This means air conditioning works harder (where it is installed) which of course uses more power and increases emissions further.
Our houses and other buildings in the UK were not designed for heat, independent of the aircon issue. That’s why lots of visitors or short term residents on social media are complaining that 30C in London feels much worse than 35C in the places they come from! My daughter and son in law spent three years in Singapore and they concur – their apartment in Singapore was designed on the assumption it would be 30C plus for much of the year. Their semi in Cambridge was not! Anyway, it all comes back to the importance of adaptation as the climate changes, as we keep saying.
And much of southern Europe is sweltering too…
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Warwickshire – let the children play …
You may remember I mentioned the new Reform leader of Warwickshire County Council, Rob Howard, who was going to ‘dumb down’ diversity and climate initiatives, which we thought might be a good thing? Well, he has relinquished that role, citing health reasons. He will still be a councillor but he has handed over to his deputy, George Finch, who is 18 years old. That may just be on an interim basis.
But it has all gone a bit quiet in terms of how newly Reform led councils are going to save billions by cutting back on (largely non-existent) diversity spend, or indeed how their ‘DOGE’ activities are doing as they look for more general cost savings. Instead, I assume that a dawning realisation is hitting hundreds of new Reform councillors. Basically, local government these days in the UK is an impossible task of managing ever-increasing demands for social care and SEN (special educational needs) spend, which the council legally has to fund, against a more slowly increasing budget. Good luck to them.
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RIP Mick Ralphs
Mick Ralphs, who died last week aged 81, played guitar on some of the most iconic rock tracks of the 1970s, in two bands I absolutely loved as a teenager - Mott the Hoople and Bad Company. Bad Company was also the first band I saw at a huge venue, Earls Court 1977.
He was self-effacing, didn’t take up the instrument until he was 18, and didn’t see himself as an amazing musician. When asked by Classic Rock magazine to rate himself as a guitarist on a scale of 1 to 10, he replied “minus 20”. But his genius was to play exactly what the song needed. His solos were often tuneful and harmonic rather than designed to show off his virtuosity, and were all the better for that. (Feel Like Makin Love’ by Bad Company is a great example).
All the Way from Memphis by Mott has a claim to be the greatest rock song ever – I once thought of ten reasons why that might be so. One was that it is itself about rock music, with Mick Ralphs losing his guitar on a US tour. Another is that it features brilliant piano, sax AND guitar playing, a triple threat that very few songs can claim. Ralphs contributes snappy licks and hooks, almost duetting with Ian Hunter’s vocals, chunky rhythm stuff, and a great solo. Sadly, he has been ill since suffering from a stroke in 2016 – so condolences as always, but his brilliant contributions to great music will be remembered until rock music itself is forgotten.