Auckland Council Healthy Waters and the procurement team, Height Project Management, Ministry of Social Development and Contractors Federation took home the Supreme Award at the 2020 New Zealand Procurement Excellence Awards.
The Procurement Excellence Supreme award recognises procurement at its best in New Zealand.
It was awarded to Healthy Waters and Height Project Management for exceeding traditional procurement expectations to drive positive change in the community.
They also took home the Social and Environmental Impact of the Year award. The stormwater department was up against strong procurement contenders such as Air New Zealand, Genesis Energy, Spark and Watercare.
“This is a bold achievement by the Healthy Waters team in contributing to improving council’s efficiencies and delivering more value for Auckland,” says Auckland Councillor Greg Sayers.
“This is a bold achievement by the Healthy Waters team in contributing to improving council’s efficiencies and delivering more value for Auckland.”
Procurement awards judges were impressed with Healthy Waters’ aspirations and collaborative approach to achieve social impact for a significant number of our people. The focus was more than just about saving money and driving efficiency. Judges noted that for an infrastructure project to be delivering social outcomes was tremendous.
“This is an incredible honour to have the Supreme award,” says Tom Mansell, Healthy Waters’ Sustainable Outcomes programme manager.
“There is a big team that is involved in achieving these sustainable outcomes nationwide. We have a lot more to achieve and it is very exciting”.
Healthy Waters general manager, Craig Mcilroy, says, “I’d like to acknowledge our wonderful team, Healthy Waters and our partners, Contractors Federation, Height Project Management and Ministry of Social Development. This achievement would not have been possible without these partnerships”.
The awards recognize Healthy Waters’ efforts in radically changing procurement and contract management to proactively tackle some of Auckland’s key challenges of social inequality, high population growth and environmental degradation.
It is also a true success story of how local and central government can work together to address disadvantages in income, employment, health and education impacting Māori and Pasifika people.
Since July 2019, their strategic framework and practical tools, the Sustainable Outcomes Toolkit has:
- supported 38 people (96 per cent Māori and Pasifika) to come off benefits and into sustainable work with the council’s contractors. This has saved the government more than $700,000 in benefits;
- enabled unemployed locals to receive one-to-one mentoring, while working in stormwater assets maintenance to upskill and potentially gain ownership of their own maintenance unit;
- developed a carbon portal that measures carbon usage on every project.
Healthy Waters’ Sustainable Outcomes Toolkit has been developed for any operational delivery or procurement team to practically embed sustainable outcomes solutions.
Given the volume of contracts procured by Auckland Council, it is not feasible to have a sustainable outcomes expert consult on each procurement development process.
The toolkit successfully provides the platform to embed Auckland Council’s sustainable procurement objectives.
The goal is to continuously improve Auckland Council and its suppliers’ capability and culture by ensuring that sustainable outcomes is part of the bottom line.
