How you can support responsible procurement

When you pay attention to sustainability in connection with your purchase and involve Group Procurement in due time, you help ensure that DTU can set relevant and consistent requirements for suppliers. This applies both to larger project purchases and to the daily use of supplier agreements.

On this page, you can get an overview of what you can do in practice to support responsible procurement, and when it is relevant to contact Group Procurement.

How you can contribute to responsible procurement

Use the supplier agreements

DTU’s supplier agreements are a key prerequisite for ensuring that procurement is carried out responsibly and in compliance with applicable legislation. When a supplier or framework agreement exists, it must always be used.

The agreements are prepared by Group Procurement based on market analyses and in accordance with DTU’s sourcing process and DTU’s Green Procurement Reference Guide. This ensures that:

• market opportunities and maturity are assessed
• environmental, climate-related, and social sustainability requirements are set at an ambitious and realistic level
• other essential terms and conditions are in place
• DTU achieves competitive conditions

By using the supplier agreements, you support a consistent procurement practice where sustainability has already been integrated, and where suppliers meet DTU’s established requirements. As agreements are renewed, more of them will include expanded sustainability requirements.

Consult the DTU Supplier Agreements overview

The DTU Supplier Agreements overview provides a complete overview of current supplier and framework agreements and is the primary entry point to DTU’s agreement portfolio.

For agreements concluded after January 1 2025, the overview shows which sustainability areas include mandatory requirements. The indicators show whether the agreement contains requirements related to:

• environment
• climate
• social sustainability

This makes it easier to make informed choices when carrying out purchases.

Use the checklist for larger purchases

Group Procurement has an advisory and supporting role and assists DTU employees in identifying and integrating sustainability in procurement.

If you need to make a purchase above DKK 100,000 for an item not found in the DTU catalogue, you must contact Group Procurement for advice and support. During the collaboration, the checklist is used to identify and integrate relevant sustainability initiatives.

The checklist includes questions related to:

• production methods
• environmental labels
• materials
• packaging
• transport
• disposal

The purpose is to identify where relevant sustainability requirements can be applied. Detailed analyses are not expected. The checklist serves as inspiration and as a basis for dialogue with Group Procurement, who will help assess which requirements are relevant and realistic for the specific purchase.