Official web site of The City of Calgary

Benefit Driven Procurement

Benefit Driven Procurement

Every year, The City  spends millions of dollars on procurement.  Every purchase has an economic, environmental and social impact, whether intended or not.  When used to obtain an added value from an existing purchase, it can provide other benefits for the community or economy.

Using buying power for economic and social benefits

Benefit Driven Procurement aims to seek greater value from procurement. These can range from apprenticeships, and the creation of meaningful and inclusive employment opportunities for underrepresented groups to supporting suppliers who have and implement their own Social Procurement and Living Wage policies.

While procurement’s main goal is to ensure that The City of Calgary has the goods and services needed for its operations, it can also provide positive impacts in our community. Benefit Driven procurement is about seeking to make intentional positive contributions to both the local economy and the overall vibrancy of the community.

Benefit Driven Procurement is synonymous with Social Procurement. The City of Calgary made the decision to call it Benefit Driven Procurement, to ensure there was no confusion with other social and non-profit programs.

Through Benefit Driven Procurement the purchase of goods and services still takes place through a competitive and transparent bidding process. The process is designed to create extra benefits for our community, but does not increase the cost of procurement or decrease the quality of what we receive.

How does Benefit Driven Procurement work:

The City is currently using different methods of including Benefit Driven Procurement in its procurement process, some of them are:

  • Encouraging low dollar amount procurements (under trade agreement thresholds) at The City to be used towards buying local where possible.
  • Procurements for goods and services that are between $5,000 to less than $75,000 and procurements for construction from $5,000 to $200,000 The City will obtain a minimum of three supplier quotes of which at least one is from a local supplier, where possible.
  • And encouraging business units at The City to use a Benefit Driven Procurement questionnaire in the procurement documents, for any goods and services procurement above $75,000 and construction above $200,000.
  • This questionnaire included as part of the evaluation criteria together with other elements such as price, quality, materials, time etc.
  • To get the key elements of that you need to know when responding to RFP and RFx documents for The City of Calgary, please watch this video.
  • Building awareness in the vendor community on the importance of adopting benefit driven practices and encouraging the community towards meaningful positive change.

Information on the Benefit Driven Procurement pilot and the first steps taken towards social procurement can be found in the two videos below.

Dispelling the myths

Taking the first steps toward social procurement

Benefit Driven Procurement Advisory Task force

The task force consists of City, private sector, community representatives, and Social Procurement subject matter experts to ensure project and policy input from  interested parties. Task force members are also committed to sharing information back to the groups that they represent.

Resources

Contact Us

If you have any questions about Benefit Driven Procurement, please reach out to the project team via email. 

undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null