Procurement with Purpose (Positive) Newsletter - No. 11, April 11th, 2023

Happy Easter and also best wishes for Passover, Ramadan or whatever other festival or celebration you prefer. In the seasonal spirit of renewal, hope, and flowers springing up through the cold earth, this week’s newsletter will feature only positive sustainability and purpose stories.

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Many of the sessions from the recent World Sustainable Procurement Day are now available to listen to and watch online here. A good place to start is the CPO Panel discussion introduced by Oliver Hurrey here.

It featured Martha Buffington, CPO of SC Johnson (who had a few technical issues unfortunately), Lisa Martin, CPO of Pharma giant GSK, and the two founders of the Sustainable Procurement Pledge, Thomas Udesen, CPO of Bayer, and Bertrand Conquéret, CPO of Henkel.

The interesting discussion ranged through how to drive transformation in terms of sustainable procurement in your organisation – how do you articulate the value? Martin talked about the different stakeholder agendas in GSK and how sustainable procurement could be related to that. And we shouldn’t think that these initiatives always have a cost associated – reducing waste for example saves money as well as being “sustainable”. But this is no longer a “nice to have”,  this is all core business for procurement. Lots of good content around collaboration, innovation and more in the 45 minutes or so of the session.

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Hurray! The world is probably not going to collapse with the sheer weight of human numbers. The long-feared “population bomb” may not go off, according to the authors of a new report that estimates that human numbers will peak lower and sooner than previously forecast.

The latest study, commissioned by top-level think tank the Club of Rome, suggests that the earth’s population (currently around 8 billion) may peak at 8.8 billion people around the middle of this century before declining to nearer 7 billion by end of the century. But the peak could be earlier and lower if governments invest more in education and progressive economic policies – the rate of population growth tends to fall as a country becomes more affluent and educated. The more “optimistic” scenario suggests a population of just 6 billion by 2100.

Last year, the United Nations estimated the world population would hit 9.7 billion by 2050 and continue to rise for some decades after that, so the new forecasts if accurate represent good news in terms of pressure on the environment and climate. Declining umbers would bring other problems of course, such as how to pay for an ageing population, and we are already seeing that issue in countries such as Japan, which has seen a decline over the last decade or so. But looking at it purely from a sustainability angle, fewer people would be good news!

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Solar power is a growing contributor to clean energy in many countries, but one of the issues is simply finding the space for the large area of solar panels needed to generate significant quantities of energy. But an exciting new research project has identified a huge opportunity to site floating panels in reservoirs. That would avoid objections about conversion of land from other uses (such as farming) or the unsightly nature of panels in the countryside (although I guess some anglers might not be very happy). 

According to a study published in the journal Nature, titled “Energy production and water savings from floating solar photovoltaics on global reservoirs”,  covering 30 per cent of the surface of the world’s 115,000 reservoirs with solar could generate 9,434 terawatt hours of power annually. That’s more than triple the entire energy production of the EU, demonstrating the size of this opportunity. You could also rent out individual panels as sunbeds, allowing people to get a good tan whilst floating idyllically on a beautiful lake… 

Joking aside, the technology appears to be proven, although there are issues such as greater corrosion risk, protecting the panels from damage in bad weather conditions, and difficulties around maintenance. But the advantages in terms of land use, and the cooling provided by the water, suggest this could be a promising way forward as part of a portfolio of innovation to drive renewable energy capacity in coming decades.  

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If you follow the debate about climate and carbon at all carefully, you will know that methane is a key greenhouse gas, and emissions of that gas from the digestive system of livestock (OK, let’s be blunt, we are talking cow’s farts here), is a major contributor to global emissions.  

But more exciting research has come up with a potential solution to this problem, and although this sounds like an April Fool joke, the answer might just be baby kangaroo poo. Researchers at Washington State University added a microbial culture made from baby kangaroo faeces plus a known methane inhibitor to a cow stomach simulator. It then produced acetic acid instead of methane. Unlike methane, acetic acid isn’t emitted as flatulence, and it may even help cows by aiding muscle growth.

Basically, the theory is that microbes in the kangaroo poo out-compete the methane-producing bugs in the stomach. But although this is another promising and innovative idea, it is worth pointing out that it has only been tried in a laboratory situation – the next step is to try it on real, live cows.  So we look forward to bringing you more news about cows’ farts as soon as we have it …

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Tigers used to freely roam the plains of southern England, often disrupting the rush-hour traffic on the A30 near Basingstoke… well, maybe not, but they were once common across much of Asia, with a population of over 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century. But hunting and human development drove the species to the brink of extinction and by 2006, there were just 1,411 individuals in India, home to most of the world’s remaining wild tigers. But conservation efforts in recent years appear to be paying off, with the latest survey in India estimating numbers at 3,167 last year. That’s about 70% of the world’s wild tiger population of around 4,500, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Good news indeed and proof that conservation work can bring success.

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On the theme of animals (Danger! Tenuous link alert!) Rat Saw God is the strong new album from South Carolina band Wednesday.  Calling your band “Wednesday” does not make it easy for people to Google you, but this lyrically interesting, impressive and occasionally challenging album is going to make them much better known (89% review rating on Metacritic so far). There are elements of southern, country-tinged rock (think Drive-by Truckers) along with nods to indie, shoegaze, Pavement, the Pixies, and vocals that remind me at times of the amazing Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief). Try Quarry for a sample - great track, but anyone else hear a bit of the Waterloo Sunset (Kinks) melody in there?