Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy

1. Overview of the federal government’s approach to sustainable development

The Policy on Green Procurement supports the Government of Canada’s effort to promote environmental stewardship. In keeping with the objectives of the policy, Shared Services Canada (SSC) supports sustainable development by integrating environmental performance considerations into the procurement decision‑making process through the activities in this supplementary information table:

• Consolidate and streamline the Government of Canada’s information technology infrastructure services in the areas of email, data centres and networks, thus eliminating unnecessary duplication and reducing the environmental footprint, consumption and waste.
• Consolidate contracts, thus enabling efficiencies in the supply chain and in service delivery.
• Integrate environmental performance considerations into the procurement decision-making process.
• Promote the Canada School of Public Service course C215, on Green Procurement, primarily to functional specialists in procurement and/or materiel management.
• Continue to engage partner departments, including Public Services and Procurement Canada (formerly Public Works and Government Services Canada), Environment and Climate Change Canada (formerly Environment Canada), Natural Resources Canada and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, to develop baseline departmental Green Procurement targets and performance indicators (temperature ratings, power availability, usage effectiveness and efficiency, energy consumption, toxic and hazardous chemical/substance content, equipment packaging, heavy metals, production processes [water consumption], solid waste, etc.).

Although Shared Services Canada is not bound by the Federal Sustainable Development Act and is not required to develop a departmental sustainable development strategy, SSC adheres to the principles of the FSDS by implementing the Policy on Green Procurement.

5. Strategic environmental assessment

SSC will continue to ensure that its decision-making process includes consideration of FSDS goals and targets through the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) process. An SEA for policy, plan or program proposals includes an analysis of the impacts of the given proposal on the environment, including on FSDS goals and targets.

Public statements on the results of SSC’s assessments will be made public when an initiative is announced. The purpose of the public statement is to demonstrate that the environmental effects, including the impacts on achieving the FSDS goals and targets, of the approved policy, plan or program have been considered during proposal development and decision making.