7 Basics Of Green Procurement

Whether your business is engaged in making something, selling something or serving something, you use all kinds of materials and products in the process.

Greening your purchasing involves thinking about your entire inbound supply chain and purchasing goods and services that are both affordable and also have the least possible environmental impact throughout the course of their lifecycles. Green purchasing does not always have to mean higher costs—although sometimes it will.

If you spend enough each year, lets’ say $500,000 or more, you could likely benefit from implementing formal green procurement policies and green spend management programs. But even if you are not ready to formalize your purchasing there are a few other basic guidelines for setting green procurement standards:

•    Buy Local. Although its not always easy, sourcing products and materials locally is good for the environment and can often save you a lot of money. According to NRDC, most produce in the United States is shipped an average of 1,500 miles before being sold; as a result, more than 80% of the cost of food goes to shippers and other middlemen.

•    Use recycled content products everywhere you can. It is easy to source recycled-content paper and products including consumables such as paper towels, napkins, toilet and facial tissue, trash can liners, and of course, light bulbs. Using reused and reclaimed materials is another option.
•    Purchase remanufactured products whenever possible. Purchasing remanufactured products is a practical choice for products made out of interchangeable parts or for which replacement parts can be easily obtained. A wide variety of office products can be remanufactured. Ask your suppliers about the availability of everything from ink and toner cartridges to copiers and  telephones to office furniture. Buying remanufactured products reduces the amount of material that goes to landfills. The downside, especially for machinery, is that remanufacturers do not always use the most current technology and may not be as efficient as new products.

•    Eliminate disposable items in the workplace.There are opportunities to eliminate disposable items all over the place. Use bagless vacuum cleaners. Provide customers with reusable shopping bags instead of plastic or paper. Ask customers if they need a bag. Provide paperless receipts. Stock your break room or kitchen with reusable mugs, cups, plates and cutlery. Provide cleaning cloths and sponges instead of paper towels. The list is endless.

•    Plan ahead to avoid expedited shipping. One hidden environmental cost to procurement is expedited shipping. By planning ahead, you can eliminate shipping practices that are costly both in terms dollars and the environmental impact.

•    Engage Suppliers. Task suppliers with helping evaluate current paper purchasing practices as well as finding cost-effective and environmentally preferable products and services. When Princeton University asked their copy paper supplier, Boise Office Solutions, to provide purchasing data so that they could analyze their paper use, the supplier gave them essential information.  It turned out that many departments were ordering a more expensive virgin paper instead of the less expensive 30% PCW paper.  Letting your suppliers do some of the homework will not only make your life easier, but you give suppliers an economic incentive to provide greener offerings.

•    Buy Cradle-To-Cradle whenever possible. As John Ehrenfeld, Executive Director of the International Society for Industrial Ecology and former Director of the MIT Program on Technology, Business, and Environment says: “Reducing unsustainability (greening) is not the same as creating sustainability.”  The highest order in purchasing is to only buy truly sustainable products and services.

If you embrace these seven principles, you will be far along the road to sustainability in your spending. Please share any other good spending policies you have.

Photo: Jay Simmons at sxc.hu

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