Schools, hospitals and councils can use billions of pounds of public money to create a more sustainable future, with the help of Forum for the Future.

We carried out a horizon scan for Buying Solutions, to help it understand how future trends may affect its work and how it can drive positive change among its suppliers and customers. 

Buying Solutions (formerly OGC Buying Solutions) is the national procurement partner for UK public services. It spends £175 billion each year on behalf of customers ranging from the biggest central government departments, through NHS Trusts and local councils, down to the smallest schools.

The Forum’s work helps the Buying Solutions team ask the right questions, and buy from the right people, ensuring that the contracts it tenders are at the vanguard of sustainability. Their public sector customers can be safe in the knowledge that they are buying goods and services that are value for money and fit for purpose both now and in the future.

Our horizon scan identified how major trends like climate change, resource constraints and population growth may affect procurement in three categories: construction, printing services and mobile solutions.

But we also examined the potential impact of “weak signals”. These are ideas, trends, technologies, or changes in behaviour which are already here, but whose significance is not yet recognised by society. It’s often unclear whether a weak signal will have a big impact or completely disappear, but being aware of them helps organisations understand and prepare for what the future may hold.

The Forum provided a report detailing the outcomes of the horizon scan, a sustainability framework against which the trends and weak signals could be categorised, as well as recommendations on how to account for these trends in current and future procurement.

Armed with the right information, and talking the right language, an organisation like Buying Solutions - that spends a whole lot of money - can shape the wider market for the better.

For more information please contact Anna Warrington