Description
This is a document about green purchasing.
Green Purchasing
A Project Report for Environment Management
What is Green Purchasing: • Green purchasing is the selection of products and services that minimize environmental impacts. It requires an organisation to carry out an assessment of the environmental consequences of a product at all the various stages of its lifecycle. • Green purchasing is rooted in the principle of pollution prevention, which strives to eliminate or to reduce risks to human health and the environment. It means evaluating purchases based on a variety of criteria, ranging from the necessity of the purchase in the first place to the options available for its eventual disposal. The Objective of Green Purchasing: • Rethinking material requirements and consumption • Reducing the use of hazardous materials • Improving energy efficiency of purchased materials • Reducing pollution and noise levels • Using recycled materials and recycling waste
This shows that Green Purchasing is not confined to a particular process but is spread over all the processes in an organisation.
Steps to Green Procurement This section outlines a ten-step process that an organization can use to go green. 1) Commit to Being Green Make Green a corporate mandate and create a green policy. This should come from the top. Specify that green is a top priority, and that all procurements for products and services must have minimum green requirements, as well as written authorizations to choose a product that is not among the greenest possible choices. Make it everyone's responsibility and make it a key component of compensation reviews and allocations. 2) Identify and Categorize Your Needs Ask yourself: what are we buying, what do you need to buy, what environmental impacts do each of these products or services have, and do they have any similarities? Once you answer these questions, you can see where you can make a big impact. Then you can do something about it. 3) Develop Green Specifications and Standards The first step is to develop green specifications and standards for every product you buy. If you buy a lot of office paper (and you probably do), you can insist on a minimum amount of recycled content and unbleached / non-chlorinated paper that is easily recyclable. If you buy a lot of IT hardware, you can save the environment in a major way by insuring that your IT organization moves away from always-on-at-fullcapacity mainframes to modern rack-based server clusters with dynamic resource allocation and virtualization and rack-based cooling that not only cut operating power requirements drastically (often in half), but also cuts power requirements for cooling (by 20% or more). You can replace all your energyhog desktops with Sun and IBM thin-client technology that is anyway from 5 times more efficient to 20 times more efficient than your average desktop (depending on computing needs). You can replace your power-hungry CRT monitors with power-light LCD monitors. You can make sure that all of your equipment has automatic power-save standby modes that consume 1W of power or less if it is left on. Wherever possible, you should use existing environmental standards such as Energy Star, or standard environmental ratings, factors, and best practices, such as might be recommended by LEED, EMAS, or the ICLEI KES in defining your specifications.
4) Establish Green Selection Criteria and Their Impact on Award Decisions Once you have identified the standards you are going to use for each category, you have to outline the selection criteria, weight and prioritize them, and figure out how much of an impact they are going to have on your decision. What percentage of the decision must be based on green considerations? 20%? 50%? 80%? In some categories, where the difference between "green" and "not green" is not that significant, or where your overall spend, and therefore your overall influence, is low, it's probably not useful to take a hard stance - unless there are considerable cost savings or brand enhancements to be made. The categories where your spend is high, and the effect of going green is substantial, are where you need to focus your efforts, as that's where you can do the most good. 5) Focus on Identifying Products and Services which are Green Generally speaking, if a supplier isn't green, or making an effort to go green, that supplier should not even be invited to bid. Make it a policy that, unless you are not able to identify at least three green suppliers, that a non-green supplier should not even be allowed to enter a bid. Also consider defining automatic exclusion rules for suppliers that still employ manufacturing processes that produce banned CFCs or products that (unnecessarily) contain lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphyenls, and polybrominated diphenyl ether (as restricted or banned under RoHS. Also, don't be afraid to show preferences to manufacturers and distributors who actively advance environmental conservation practices. 6) Always Use a Life-Cycle Costing Approach Consider the total environmental impact of the product you are considering from the harvesting and processing of the raw materials through its final disposal before making a decision. Be sure to include efficiency, waste, recyclability, and material composition into your analysis. With regards to services, consider the total environmental impact of the equipment utilized in the performance of the services as well as any impact of the services themselves. 7) Include Green Performance Clauses in Every Contract Be sure to incorporate clauses into every contract that allow you to enforce penalties or terminate the contract if the supplier does not meet the minimum green and sustainability requirements that they commit to. Also consider incorporating clauses that reward the supplier with more business or bonuses if they exceed green requirements. For example, if they managed to increase their
recycled content factor from 40% to 50% without reducing quality, they should be rewarded with more business. If they manage to deliver equipment which is more energy efficient than promised, and you save bags of money, give them a bonus by reducing the base volume rebate you negotiated. In addition, the entire contract should be littered with green terminology. 8) Communicate and Inform Once you have policies and practices, it's important that you communicate them, explain them, and offer your buyers training on the complex categories that they have to manage on a regular basis so that they can differentiate the products that are truly green from those that are coated in green washing. 9) Use Green Technology Use e-procurement, e-sourcing, and other e-systems, run on energy-efficient technology, to buy online rather than using reams upon reams of paper that result in the unnecessary destruction of forests to research, contract, and buy products and services. Furthermore, maintain all of your manuals, and policies, in easy to access e-documents on your indexed, searchable, and easily accessible corporate intranet
Benefits of Green Purchasing 1. Brand Image 1. Customer Satisfaction 3. Reduced Risk 4. Cost Reduction Going green can reduce the following costs, among others: hazardous material management costs Operational costs Repair and replacement costs Disposal costs Health & safety costs (which often come in the form of liability insurance and expensive settlements)
5. Increased Shareholder Value. Identifying Green Products 1. Product specific Ecolabels Textile, Leather, 2...Country Specific Ecomarks Japan, Canada, Europe, Korea, Thailand, ... 3. ISO 14020 Series – Type I is a multi-attribute label developed by a third party; Type II is a single-attribute label developed by the producer; Type III is an eco-label whose awarding is based on a full life-cycle assessment. 4. Green Products have different names and definition/ criteria globally. Green Purchasing in india Carbon footprint strategy A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation etc. The carbon footprint is a measurement of all greenhouse gases we individually produce and has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent.
The pie chart above shows the main elements which make up the total of an typical person's carbon footprint in the developed world. A carbon footprint is made up of the sum of two parts, the primary footprint (shown by the green slices of the pie chart) and the secondary footprint (shown as the yellow slices).
1. The primary footprint is a measure of our direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels including domestic energy consumption and transportation (e.g. car and plane). We have direct control of these.
2. The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown. To put it very simply – the more we buy the more emissions will be caused on our behalf.
Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
•
Sign up to a green energy supplier, who will supply electricity from renewable sources (e.g. wind and hydroelectric power) - this will reduce your carbon footprint contribution from electricity to zero
•
Turn it off when not in use (lights, television, DVD player, Hi Fi, computer etc. etc. ...) Click here to find out which electrical items in your household are contribute the most to your Carbon Footprint
• •
Turn down the central heating slightly (try just 1 to 2 degrees C) Turn down the water heating setting (just 2 degrees will make a significant saving)
•
Check the central heating timer setting - remember there is no point heating the house after you have left for work
•
Fill your dish washer and washing machine with a full load - this will save you water, electricity, and washing powder
• • • • • •
Fill the kettle with only as much water as you need Unplug your mobile phone as soon as it has finished charging Defrost your fridge/freezer regularly Do your weekly shopping in a single trip Hang out the washing to dry rather than tumble drying it Go for a run rather than drive to the gym
The following is a list of items that may take an initial investment They should pay for themselves over the course of 1-4 years through savings on your energy bills.
•
Fit energy saving light bulbs
• • •
Install thermostatic valves on your radiators Insulate your hot water tank, your loft and your walls 35% of heat generated in the house is lost through the walls. Installing cavity wall installation to a medium size house could reduce your heating bills by up to £100 per year
•
By installing 180mm thick loft insulation you could stop about 25% of your heating escaping through the roof
• •
Recycle your grey water Replace your old fridge / freezer (if it is over 15 years old), with a new one with energy efficiency rating of "A"
•
Replace your old boiler with a new energy efficient condensing boiler
Travel less and travel more carbon footprint friendly.
• • • •
Car share to work, or for the kids school run Use the bus or a train rather than your car For short journeys either walk or cycle Don't use domestic flights (e.g. from London to Edinburgh), use a train or a coach.
• • •
Take the ferry or channel tunnel instead of flying to France See if your employer will allow you to work from home one day a week Next time you replace your car - check out diesel engines. With one of these you can even make your own Biodiesel fuel. Find out more about Biodiesel.
•
When on holiday - hire a bicycle to explore locally rather than a car
•
When staying in a hotel turn the lights and air-conditioning off when you leave your hotel room
•
Ask for your room towels to be washed every other day, rather than every day
As well as your primary carbon footprint, there is also a secondary footprint that you cause through your buying habits. If you buy foods out of season at the super market, then these will have either been flown or shipped in from far away - all adding to your carbon footprint.
• •
Reduce your consumption of meat Don't buy bottled water if your tap water is safe to drink (especially if it has been shipped from far away)
• •
Buy local fruit and vegetables, or even try growing your own Don't buy fresh fruit and vegetables which are out of season, they may have been flown in
•
Try to buy products made closer to home (look out and avoid items that are made in the distant lands)
• • • •
Buy organic produce Don't buy over packaged products Recycle as much as possible Think carefully about the type of activities you do in your spare time. Do any of these cause an increase in carbon emissions? e.g. Saunas, Health clubs, restaurants and pubs, go-karting etc. etc...
1. Eco Mark, a voluntary scheme launched by MoEF in 1991. 2. Any product which is made, used or disposed of in a way that significantly reduces the harm it would otherwise cause to the environment, are categorized as environment friendly product. 3. Criteria: Follows “cradle – to grave” approach Less potential for pollution in production, usage and disposal. Recycled, recyclable, biodegradable 4. Saving non-renewable resources. 5. Eco Mark met with little success. 6 No regulatory push 7 Government purchases made on lowest cost As well in many private organisations A major disincentive 8Changing focus Pre-budget discussions on promoting Greener projects Indian Industries has shown interest NGOs asking for green products Energy star from BEE 9 In India concept of Green products is still evolving
doc_934795930.doc
This is a document about green purchasing.
Green Purchasing
A Project Report for Environment Management
What is Green Purchasing: • Green purchasing is the selection of products and services that minimize environmental impacts. It requires an organisation to carry out an assessment of the environmental consequences of a product at all the various stages of its lifecycle. • Green purchasing is rooted in the principle of pollution prevention, which strives to eliminate or to reduce risks to human health and the environment. It means evaluating purchases based on a variety of criteria, ranging from the necessity of the purchase in the first place to the options available for its eventual disposal. The Objective of Green Purchasing: • Rethinking material requirements and consumption • Reducing the use of hazardous materials • Improving energy efficiency of purchased materials • Reducing pollution and noise levels • Using recycled materials and recycling waste
This shows that Green Purchasing is not confined to a particular process but is spread over all the processes in an organisation.
Steps to Green Procurement This section outlines a ten-step process that an organization can use to go green. 1) Commit to Being Green Make Green a corporate mandate and create a green policy. This should come from the top. Specify that green is a top priority, and that all procurements for products and services must have minimum green requirements, as well as written authorizations to choose a product that is not among the greenest possible choices. Make it everyone's responsibility and make it a key component of compensation reviews and allocations. 2) Identify and Categorize Your Needs Ask yourself: what are we buying, what do you need to buy, what environmental impacts do each of these products or services have, and do they have any similarities? Once you answer these questions, you can see where you can make a big impact. Then you can do something about it. 3) Develop Green Specifications and Standards The first step is to develop green specifications and standards for every product you buy. If you buy a lot of office paper (and you probably do), you can insist on a minimum amount of recycled content and unbleached / non-chlorinated paper that is easily recyclable. If you buy a lot of IT hardware, you can save the environment in a major way by insuring that your IT organization moves away from always-on-at-fullcapacity mainframes to modern rack-based server clusters with dynamic resource allocation and virtualization and rack-based cooling that not only cut operating power requirements drastically (often in half), but also cuts power requirements for cooling (by 20% or more). You can replace all your energyhog desktops with Sun and IBM thin-client technology that is anyway from 5 times more efficient to 20 times more efficient than your average desktop (depending on computing needs). You can replace your power-hungry CRT monitors with power-light LCD monitors. You can make sure that all of your equipment has automatic power-save standby modes that consume 1W of power or less if it is left on. Wherever possible, you should use existing environmental standards such as Energy Star, or standard environmental ratings, factors, and best practices, such as might be recommended by LEED, EMAS, or the ICLEI KES in defining your specifications.
4) Establish Green Selection Criteria and Their Impact on Award Decisions Once you have identified the standards you are going to use for each category, you have to outline the selection criteria, weight and prioritize them, and figure out how much of an impact they are going to have on your decision. What percentage of the decision must be based on green considerations? 20%? 50%? 80%? In some categories, where the difference between "green" and "not green" is not that significant, or where your overall spend, and therefore your overall influence, is low, it's probably not useful to take a hard stance - unless there are considerable cost savings or brand enhancements to be made. The categories where your spend is high, and the effect of going green is substantial, are where you need to focus your efforts, as that's where you can do the most good. 5) Focus on Identifying Products and Services which are Green Generally speaking, if a supplier isn't green, or making an effort to go green, that supplier should not even be invited to bid. Make it a policy that, unless you are not able to identify at least three green suppliers, that a non-green supplier should not even be allowed to enter a bid. Also consider defining automatic exclusion rules for suppliers that still employ manufacturing processes that produce banned CFCs or products that (unnecessarily) contain lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphyenls, and polybrominated diphenyl ether (as restricted or banned under RoHS. Also, don't be afraid to show preferences to manufacturers and distributors who actively advance environmental conservation practices. 6) Always Use a Life-Cycle Costing Approach Consider the total environmental impact of the product you are considering from the harvesting and processing of the raw materials through its final disposal before making a decision. Be sure to include efficiency, waste, recyclability, and material composition into your analysis. With regards to services, consider the total environmental impact of the equipment utilized in the performance of the services as well as any impact of the services themselves. 7) Include Green Performance Clauses in Every Contract Be sure to incorporate clauses into every contract that allow you to enforce penalties or terminate the contract if the supplier does not meet the minimum green and sustainability requirements that they commit to. Also consider incorporating clauses that reward the supplier with more business or bonuses if they exceed green requirements. For example, if they managed to increase their
recycled content factor from 40% to 50% without reducing quality, they should be rewarded with more business. If they manage to deliver equipment which is more energy efficient than promised, and you save bags of money, give them a bonus by reducing the base volume rebate you negotiated. In addition, the entire contract should be littered with green terminology. 8) Communicate and Inform Once you have policies and practices, it's important that you communicate them, explain them, and offer your buyers training on the complex categories that they have to manage on a regular basis so that they can differentiate the products that are truly green from those that are coated in green washing. 9) Use Green Technology Use e-procurement, e-sourcing, and other e-systems, run on energy-efficient technology, to buy online rather than using reams upon reams of paper that result in the unnecessary destruction of forests to research, contract, and buy products and services. Furthermore, maintain all of your manuals, and policies, in easy to access e-documents on your indexed, searchable, and easily accessible corporate intranet
Benefits of Green Purchasing 1. Brand Image 1. Customer Satisfaction 3. Reduced Risk 4. Cost Reduction Going green can reduce the following costs, among others: hazardous material management costs Operational costs Repair and replacement costs Disposal costs Health & safety costs (which often come in the form of liability insurance and expensive settlements)
5. Increased Shareholder Value. Identifying Green Products 1. Product specific Ecolabels Textile, Leather, 2...Country Specific Ecomarks Japan, Canada, Europe, Korea, Thailand, ... 3. ISO 14020 Series – Type I is a multi-attribute label developed by a third party; Type II is a single-attribute label developed by the producer; Type III is an eco-label whose awarding is based on a full life-cycle assessment. 4. Green Products have different names and definition/ criteria globally. Green Purchasing in india Carbon footprint strategy A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation etc. The carbon footprint is a measurement of all greenhouse gases we individually produce and has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent.
The pie chart above shows the main elements which make up the total of an typical person's carbon footprint in the developed world. A carbon footprint is made up of the sum of two parts, the primary footprint (shown by the green slices of the pie chart) and the secondary footprint (shown as the yellow slices).
1. The primary footprint is a measure of our direct emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels including domestic energy consumption and transportation (e.g. car and plane). We have direct control of these.
2. The secondary footprint is a measure of the indirect CO2 emissions from the whole lifecycle of products we use - those associated with their manufacture and eventual breakdown. To put it very simply – the more we buy the more emissions will be caused on our behalf.
Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
•
Sign up to a green energy supplier, who will supply electricity from renewable sources (e.g. wind and hydroelectric power) - this will reduce your carbon footprint contribution from electricity to zero
•
Turn it off when not in use (lights, television, DVD player, Hi Fi, computer etc. etc. ...) Click here to find out which electrical items in your household are contribute the most to your Carbon Footprint
• •
Turn down the central heating slightly (try just 1 to 2 degrees C) Turn down the water heating setting (just 2 degrees will make a significant saving)
•
Check the central heating timer setting - remember there is no point heating the house after you have left for work
•
Fill your dish washer and washing machine with a full load - this will save you water, electricity, and washing powder
• • • • • •
Fill the kettle with only as much water as you need Unplug your mobile phone as soon as it has finished charging Defrost your fridge/freezer regularly Do your weekly shopping in a single trip Hang out the washing to dry rather than tumble drying it Go for a run rather than drive to the gym
The following is a list of items that may take an initial investment They should pay for themselves over the course of 1-4 years through savings on your energy bills.
•
Fit energy saving light bulbs
• • •
Install thermostatic valves on your radiators Insulate your hot water tank, your loft and your walls 35% of heat generated in the house is lost through the walls. Installing cavity wall installation to a medium size house could reduce your heating bills by up to £100 per year
•
By installing 180mm thick loft insulation you could stop about 25% of your heating escaping through the roof
• •
Recycle your grey water Replace your old fridge / freezer (if it is over 15 years old), with a new one with energy efficiency rating of "A"
•
Replace your old boiler with a new energy efficient condensing boiler
Travel less and travel more carbon footprint friendly.
• • • •
Car share to work, or for the kids school run Use the bus or a train rather than your car For short journeys either walk or cycle Don't use domestic flights (e.g. from London to Edinburgh), use a train or a coach.
• • •
Take the ferry or channel tunnel instead of flying to France See if your employer will allow you to work from home one day a week Next time you replace your car - check out diesel engines. With one of these you can even make your own Biodiesel fuel. Find out more about Biodiesel.
•
When on holiday - hire a bicycle to explore locally rather than a car
•
When staying in a hotel turn the lights and air-conditioning off when you leave your hotel room
•
Ask for your room towels to be washed every other day, rather than every day
As well as your primary carbon footprint, there is also a secondary footprint that you cause through your buying habits. If you buy foods out of season at the super market, then these will have either been flown or shipped in from far away - all adding to your carbon footprint.
• •
Reduce your consumption of meat Don't buy bottled water if your tap water is safe to drink (especially if it has been shipped from far away)
• •
Buy local fruit and vegetables, or even try growing your own Don't buy fresh fruit and vegetables which are out of season, they may have been flown in
•
Try to buy products made closer to home (look out and avoid items that are made in the distant lands)
• • • •
Buy organic produce Don't buy over packaged products Recycle as much as possible Think carefully about the type of activities you do in your spare time. Do any of these cause an increase in carbon emissions? e.g. Saunas, Health clubs, restaurants and pubs, go-karting etc. etc...
1. Eco Mark, a voluntary scheme launched by MoEF in 1991. 2. Any product which is made, used or disposed of in a way that significantly reduces the harm it would otherwise cause to the environment, are categorized as environment friendly product. 3. Criteria: Follows “cradle – to grave” approach Less potential for pollution in production, usage and disposal. Recycled, recyclable, biodegradable 4. Saving non-renewable resources. 5. Eco Mark met with little success. 6 No regulatory push 7 Government purchases made on lowest cost As well in many private organisations A major disincentive 8Changing focus Pre-budget discussions on promoting Greener projects Indian Industries has shown interest NGOs asking for green products Energy star from BEE 9 In India concept of Green products is still evolving
doc_934795930.doc