Public Procurement and Property

Delivering community benefits through Operation Beach Clean!

December 17, 2021 by Niamh Duncan No Comments | Category Case study, community benefits, framework agreements

Our framework agreements continue to deliver additional benefits for organisations and local communities. We’re pleased to share a case study from a supplier on our Office Equipment framework.

Konica Minolta show how they put their sustainability and environmental credentials into action. By partnering with South Ayrshire Council on ‘Operation Beach Clean’, where employees volunteered to keep Troon beach litter-free.

South Ayrshire Council have worked with their Contractors in their “Community Planning” programme, delivered via their Community Planning Board. The aim is to make South Ayrshire one of the best places to live and work in Scotland.

Case study

At the start of Konica’s partnership with South Ayrshire Council in 2016, they committed to deliver community benefits, which would ‘enhance or improve the local community’.

To this end, Konica employees recently took to a beautiful stretch of beach in Troon, armed with litter-pickers. Volunteering for ‘Operation Beach Clean’ – seeking to enhance South Ayrshire Council’s efforts to maintain a litter-free beach, for everyone to enjoy. As stated by Rosie Cassidy, ’again, Konica Minolta has demonstrated their commitment to delivering community benefits at a local level’.

Customer Profile

South Ayrshire Council is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland, bordering onto Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire.
The Council provides services such as

• education
• social care
• housing
• highways
• street lighting
• cleansing

Challenges

South Ayrshire Council is continually focusing on helping to make South Ayrshire one of the best places to live and work in Scotland. Their ‘Community Planning’ is a simple idea that if we all work more effectively together, then public services will improve for those who use .

Solution

We understand that South Ayrshire Council need to consider how its procurement decisions can improve social value. They are expected to ensure their supply chain contributes as much as possible to the overall wellbeing of their communities.

At Konica Minolta, every employee contributes to our Social Value initiatives and does so in accordance with our ‘Charter of Corporate Behaviour’.  Established in 2003, it identifies that, “Corporations, in addition to being economic entities … should be beneficial to society at large”.

In simple terms, our employees voluntarily contribute to their local communities, to deliver environmental and sustainable projects, such as “Operation Beach Clean”. In other words, we believe that to create value for our company, we must also do so for society.

Looking to the future…

We will continually seek to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions, connecting people, places and devices through digital transformation.  We are proud of our long-term partnership with the South Ayrshire Council, and look forward to honouring our commitment to deliver further benefits to the local community in South Ayrshire.

Our thanks to Konica Minolta for providing this case study.

To find out more about Public Procurement in Scotland, please visit www.gov.scot/procurement

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Tags: Community benefits, environmental benefits, framework agreements, ICT products, procurement, Public procurement, public sector, public sector procurement, Scottish Government procurement, South Ayrshire, South Ayrshire council, Suppliers, Sustainability, sustainable procurement

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