The city of Pittsburgh approaches procurement and the connected budgeting processes with a lense of resilience. Pittsburgh, second largest city in the US-state of Pennsylvania, uses its purchasing power as key tool to help achieve climate mitigation targets and to reduce consumption of resources. In addition, the city leverages procurement to support local start-ups as well as to collaborate with other cities in incentivising the market to implement on the renewable energy transition.

The city is part of the Urban Transition Alliance, an opportunity for industrial legacy cities across the world to demonstrate their commitment to inclusive and sustainable urban development. Pittsburgh focusses on the exchange on training models that connect local workforce development programs with both labor and clean energy project developers.

Sustainable procurement in Pittsburgh means the opportunity to take a process oriented approach where change starts as a pilot that is then scaled-up across teams and departments - integrating lessons learned on the way. For example, in an effort increase efficiency and to decrease our waste, the City of Pittsburgh began an e-signature pilot project in January of 2020. Since then it has been expanded from a small select group of documents to being used with all city contracts.  So far in the last 9 months the City has Pittsburgh has saved the following equivalents through e-signatures:

• 10,776 lbs of wood (approximately 33 trees)
• 31,731 gallons of water (approximately 24 washing machines)
• 25,296 lbs of CO2 (approximately 2 ¼ car)
• 1,752 lbs of waste (approximately 30 trash cans)