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30. November 2007 by admin.
FederalTimes.com
Commentary: Taking steps to buy green
By LUIS A. LUNA
November 29, 2007
Can putting a used towel back on the rack help save the planet? If you’re a traveling Environmental Protection Agency employee, you’re likely to stay at a hotel that gives you that option.
More and more, we are recognizing that many small individual decisions — what we buy, what we keep, what we toss — have a significant cumulative impact on the environment.
When we at EPA buy goods or services, we take environmental impact into account. After all, whatever we use to accomplish EPA’s mission consumes the Earth’s resources. We thus take care to buy things that minimize the agency’s impact on the environment.
Among the most celebrated of EPA’s green purchasing initiatives is one affecting how we select meeting and conference services.
A hotel or conference site vendor must now include information about the facility’s environmental practices. Does it leave linens and towels in rooms for patrons to reuse? How efficient is its energy and water usage? Is it near public transportation, or does it offer shuttles? Is the check-in and check-out process paperless? Does it recycle?
Our purchasing staff then considers this information when evaluating proposals. The more environmentally friendly a vendor’s policies, the more competitive its offer. For meeting space and conference service providers who want to increase their chances of doing business with EPA, it’s an incentive to adopt greener practices.
Is this just feel-good stuff, or does it really make a difference? Take a look at a case study done by EPA’s Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, which quantified the benefits of environmental improvements achieved by a luxury 834-room hotel in Washington:
• Recycling paper and corrugated cardboard instead of simply hauling it to the landfill saved about $10,400 a year in trucking costs alone.
• Replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights, installing more energy-efficient air-conditioning chillers, and adding variable frequency drives in electric fans and water pump motors saved another $125,000 per year in electricity.
• Replacing old five-gallon-per-flush toilets with more water-efficient ones reduced water bills by $150,000 a year.
All this not only adds to the hotel’s bottom line, it also means the hotel now produces less waste, uses less energy and consumes fewer resources.
This same principle can be applied to any purchase, no matter how small. For instance, when EPA buys business cards, we now specify 100 percent recycled paper, with at least 50 percent post-consumer fiber — material recovered from waste destined for disposal, having completed its life as a consumer item. That’s the highest environmental standard in the government for recycled content. It means fewer trees are cut, with more paper kept out of the waste stream.
The concept works at the end of our purchases’ useful life as well. We make sure our electronic equipment doesn’t simply go to the dump. And we shared what we learned about disposing of electronic equipment in an environmentally responsible manner with other agencies. Our government-wide contracting vehicle, the Recycling Electronics and Asset Disposition program, allows federal agencies to make sure obsolete electronics will be safely taken away for reuse, recycling or proper disposal. Since the government disposes of about 10,000 old computers each week, the program prevents a lot of potentially harmful material from ending up in the ground.
EPA’s acquisition professionals are constantly looking for new ways to use the agency’s purchases to promote environmental health. Their colleagues at other agencies can do the same. There are undoubtedly many more opportunities to harness the government’s vast buying power and stimulate the market for green products and services of all types. By doing this often enough, agencies can encourage new industries, reduce consumption, increase America’s energy independence and help the environment.
Luis A. Luna is assistant administrator for administration and resource management and chief acquisition officer at the Environmental Protection Agency.
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17. September 2007 by admin.
GreenBiz News | Businesses Embracing Green Procurement, Survey Finds
Businesses Embracing Green Procurement, Survey Finds
Source: GreenBiz.com
According to a new survey from EyeForProcurement, more than 50 percent of companies have policies on greening their supply chain, and companies are nearly unanimous in their belief that green supply chains will only continue growing.
The survey asked 188 procurement professionals — primarily in the United States, Europe and Asia — about their companies’ practices, policies and plans for reducing the environmental impact of the materials used in their work.
The two most heavily represented sectors in the survey were the transportation/logistics fields and the high-tech industry. The retail and apparel sectors were minimally represented, which suggests to the study’s authors that going green is not a high priority for businesses in that field.
The vast majority of products that companies are sourcing sustainably are packaging materials and the raw materials used in manufacturing, with 29 percent and 24 percent of respondents purchasing those materials from sustainable sources.
Two-thirds of the professionals in the survey said that they are practicing green procurement to support their companies’ environmental or sustainability strategies, while 49 percent also said they’re responding to customers’ interest in eco-friendly products and services.
Although companies are increasingly aware of the benefits and importance of green procurement, most of them are only acquiring a small portion of their materials in that way. Only 13 percent of respondents are sourcing half or more of their products and services sustainably, while 55 percent said they source less than 10 percent of green goods.
“The procurement industry appears to be divided on the issue of the cost of implementing green purchasing practices,” the survey notes, with just over half (51 percent) ready to pay a premium for eco-friendly products, and the remaining 49 percent seeing additional costs as an obstacle to sustainable procurement.
Regardless of the obstacles to greening the supply chain, companies agree that it is not a passing trend. Ninety-eight percent of the companies responding to the survey said that green purchasing will continue to expand, and the report notes that customers from all sectors and all countries are increasingly demanding eco-friendly products and services.
The survey was conducted by EyeForProcurement.com, which will be hosting the 2007 Green Purchasing Summit this November in Miami, Florida. More information about the survey and the conference are available at http://www.eyeforprocurement.com/green/
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16. June 2007 by admin.
Think through green initiatives, execs told : Industry News : News : BCS
Think through green initiatives, execs told
15/06/2007
Business executives are being urged to pay close attention to environmentally aware initiatives and play a leading role in the development of energy-saving practices.
Speakers at the recent Kyocera Green Card conference, Victoria Barber of energy firm Centrica recommended that business leaders to commit to energy saving and sustainable procurement in an attempt to achieve positive environmental benefits among their organisations, reports IT Week.
To this end a number of ways in which IT can be used to help meet these goals were outlined, with businesses able to reduce paper consumption and travel, both of which can have definite environmental benefits in the long-term.
In doing this, Nick Harwood of Sustainable Energy Developments advised chiefs to carefully access the long-term benefits before committing to new, green processes. Stuart Williams of environmental charity Forum for the Future echoed these views.
‘IT represents a quick win as it has sizable environmental impacts, but there is a clear cost case for buying kit that uses less energy over its lifetime,’ he said.
The government recently launched a green IT taskforce designed to reduce CO2 emissions in the IT industry.
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14. June 2007 by admin.
WASHINGTON (Army News Service, June 13, 2007) - Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Rucker, Ala.; and Department of the Army were awarded for contributions to the environment at yesterday’s 2007 White House Closing the Circle Awards ceremony.
“Acceptance of these prestigious awards confirms that Army sustainability is on the move and gaining momentum. We’re building green, buying green and going green,” said Tad Davis, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health. “I’m confident this recognition will spark others to action.”
Department of the Army received the “Sowing the Seeds” award for its leadership in setting a future vision with the Army’s “Strategy for the Environment.” The strategy outlines the Army’s vision for the next 20 years and how its goals will impact the Army’s mission, the environment and local communities. It transitions the Army’s compliance-based environmental program to a mission-oriented approach based on the principles of sustainability.
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13. June 2007 by admin.
“Most folks don’t think of that I do as environmental – to a lot of people, we just buy stuff,” Lyons said. “But I tie the two together.”
Lyons is one of many at Rutgers committed to making the university a leader in “green” initiatives – environmentally sound policies beneficial to the university community, New Jersey, the nation and the world. His work takes him to universities around the nation and international conferences in Latin America and northern Europe.
New Jersey has been a leader in the United States in the area of environmentally responsible business practices. State laws passed in the late 1980s – when Lyons first came to Rutgers as a buyer – compelled businesses and institutions to recycle at least 25 percent of their waste. Rutgers recycles nearly three times that amount, Lyons said, and the university has always been a few steps ahead other institutions in terms of sustainable practices.
Lyons recognizes that the items Rutgers University needs to operate – from rubber bands to rubber tires, from lab chemicals to cleaning chemicals – have to come from somewhere. Lyons wants to know everything about how the product is made, as well as the best way to reduce the product’s impact on the environment at Rutgers, in New Jersey, and on the world.
By the end of the semester, Lyons hopes to have funding in place to establish the Green Purchasing Institute at Rutgers. The organization would do formal research into a practice prevalent at Rutgers for years: incorporating “green” language into purchasing contracts.
Doing so ensures that Rutgers does business with environmentally and socially responsible corporations. “If you are just buying rubber bands, we want those rubber bands to be made with environmentally responsible products, we want some information about where they come from, and if it’s stripping rubber off trees in Brazil,” Lyons said. “We want to know what the conditions are and how the folks down there are being treated in order to make those rubber bands.” Lyons is also a research professor of supply chain environmental management on the New Brunswick Campus. The purchasing department is located in the Office of Administration and Finance.
The key to identifying environmentally and socially progressive companies is not to demand certain practices. Lyons said his flexible approach provides potential vendors with a list of environmentally responsible products and behaviors, and allows companies to be creative in identifying how they can comply. “We don’t dictate . . . They know that they want this contract with the university, so in most cases they are knocking themselves over, versus trying to figure out ways not to be environmentally responsible.”
Further, Lyons sees benefits in using Rutgers’ size and scope to convince industry to adopt green practices, even in small ways. One of the university’s most recent accomplishments was convincing Staples, Inc., to use a biodiesel fuel made of 20 percent soybean oil in company trucks making deliveries to Rutgers campuses.
Rutgers Environmental Health and Safety, Facilities Maintenance Services, Material Services, and Procurement Services worked together to ensure that all 55 diesel-fueled vehicles used at the New Brunswick Campus use B20, the soybean oil-diesel blend.
“Biodiesel can be made from various plants, or from processed food wastes such as used cooking oils,” said Richard Bankowski, manager of environmental services at Rutgers Environmental Health and Safety. “The advantages are threefold. It burns cleaner than regular diesel, it reduces our use of fossil fuels, and it is domestically produced, which helps us reduce our dependence on foreign oil.” Using B20 in place of standard diesel reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 56 tons each year.
Rutgers’ environmental expertise crosses borders
Lyons’ work has taken him from his office in the Administrative Services Building III to Asia, northern Europe, South America, and all over the country. Through his travels, Lyons researches the environmental impact of institutions, borrows the best practices from schools and governments worldwide, and shares his expertise with counterparts in other states and countries.
“A lot of my research is in South America and northern Europe . . . They just happened to be a little bit more progressive. So I did a lot of work in Bogotá, and a lot of extensive work in England, Wales, and Ireland.” In 1990, Lyons attended an international summit in Rio de Janeiro, where he connected with educators from around the world. Tufts University invited him to advise more than 120 colleges and universities on environmentally sound purchasing.
Residents of the United States have slowly awakened to the threats posed by global warming and environmental issues. One reason for the delay is that the problem is not staring most Americans in the face, Lyons said. Garbage landfills, for example, are physically far removed from most people in a country as large as the United States.
“Most people in the United States don’t see this issue, because you put the garbage out on the curb and it goes away magically,” Lyons said. “When you go to Peru, the garbage is there. People throw it out and eventually it just starts to pile up all over the place.”
In the latter half of this semester, companies will be invited to a green purchasing supplier fair, where contracted companies and potential vendors display their environmentally sensitive products. At the same time, a committee on sustainability will produce an environmental report that will become an annual practice.
“The goal is to get people at Rutgers energized about what we are doing,” Lyons said. “We’ll target the general community, legislators, other universities and colleges, as well as corporations.”
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12. June 2007 by admin.
To find answers to those questions, Forrester Research surveyed 125 operations and procurement professionals in enterprise IT shops in the US and Europe.
What did we learn? The survey results showed fairly broad awareness of green IT, an interest in energy-efficient IT systems and a strong desire to hear more from vendors on these topics. What our survey did not find was broad-based activity by user firms to translate their green awareness and concerns into tangible action in IT procurement or operations.
For example, 85% of respondents told us that environmental concerns were “somewhat important” or “very important” in planning IT operations. As with the vendors, this awareness is driven by regulatory requirements and corporate responsibility, but even more important are growing concerns about power availability and costs. A number of companies considering changing their purchasing or operations practices will be driven solely by a desire for greater efficiencies and the resulting cost reduction. Green benefits like reductions in carbon dioxide emissions may result, but these are seen as by-products of hard-headed, ROI-driven business practices.
A few companies told us that their green IT efforts were driven from the top of the company. Acting more environmentally responsibly is a high priority, especially for European companies, US energy or recreation businesses, and government agencies.
For them, green IT is part of a strategy to improve how they’re perceived by customers, investors, regulators and employees.
But awareness has not yet been translated into action. Only a quarter of companies surveyed have written recycling, energy efficiency or clean manufacturing criteria into their IT procurement processes. When we asked their procurement and operations people what vendors could do to increase their green purchasing, the resounding response was that they’d like vendors to give them more information. Only 15% of the companies surveyed said they had a “high level of awareness” of IT vendors’ green initiatives, and most told us that they were hearing little or nothing from top-tier vendors on this topic.
When I read that, I got an image of someone waving a red cape in front of a herd of snorting bulls. Get ready for the IT vendors to charge. The best of their efforts to educate customers will have these characteristics:
• A CFO perspective. Green development and marketing by IT vendors to date has been a geekfest. The smart ones will stress the business benefits of green policies — not just cost reduction, but risk reduction, brand enhancement and growth opportunities. All of these appeal to the CFO and other executives.
• A “hard green” emphasis. User organisations are clear about this: green is nice, but it’s the long view that matters. Vendors will break through the messaging clutter with tangible ROI, complete with calculators and cost studies to mitigate customers’ doubts.
• A holistic approach. The most effective vendors will take a wide-angle view of green IT rather than getting mesmerised by one aspect like energy efficiency or product recycling. Weaving together the disparate elements of a green IT strategy — and practising what they preach in their internal IT operations — will bring credibility and punch to vendors’ marketing efforts.
• A well-tuned set of messages. The best messages will resonate with various customer motivations for going green. Customers’ receptivity will differ by industry, geography and individual role.
Green IT is no bubble. Companies’ awareness and interest will only slowly translate into concrete actions to lessen the environmental impact of their IT operations.
Vendors can speed up that translation by recognising that for most companies, it’s business first and green second.
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8. June 2007 by admin.
WWF has assisted the Japanese printer and paper manufacturer to establish a new policy that ensures wood used in its paper has not been illegally logged and comes from sustainable sources. It also incorporates previous company guidelines on not using harmful chemicals in the production process.
It will be applied to paper produced in Japan immediately and to that produced overseas by 2008. Epson wants complete compliance with the policy by 2010.
Epson asked WWF for assistance after reading an earlier report by the group on ethical paper procurement. It explored the need for a balance between use and conservation of forests, and how to use wood in a more appropriate way.
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