Why adopt new practices?

The city makes over $3 billion in purchases each year. As a result, procurement is a powerful lever for developing a local, circular, social, low-carbon and inclusive economy. Montréal’s new responsible purchasing policy favours companies whose practices are aligned with these goals.

Under this policy, SMEs, which represent 99 per cent of businesses in Montréal, can access the city’s public contracts more easily. The policy also benefits social economy enterprises and local, emerging and diverse suppliers. The city wants to do business with responsible companies that reduce their ecological footprint, without excluding current suppliers.

This new policy is part of the Montréal 2030 strategic plan, a vision of the future focused on economic, social and ecological resilience.

Three new types of criteria

The new policy introduces three types of supplier selection criteria:

1. Economic criteria, such as the location of companies and the proportion of products or services designed, produced or assembled locally.
2. Social criteria, such as compliance with labour standards, employment equity, adoption of the social economy business model and representation of diversity among the company’s owners or shareholders.
3. Environmental criteria, such as product sustainability, carbon emissions, energy consumption, and environmental and human health impacts.

Learn more about the criteria and the city’s “buy local” vision: