30. September 2008 by admin.

Report: Sustainability Begins in the Purchasing Department | Sustainable Life Media
Report: Sustainability Begins in the Purchasing Department

Procurement professionals are fast becoming a “critical, core element” of corporate sustainability efforts, a new survey finds.

While many companies are focusing their main efficiency efforts around green IT, the use of automated procurement solutions is “quietly emerging as the leading edge of many organizations’ efforts to go green,” according to the survey by KPMG, Inc.

The survey of 600 senior-level procurement professionals finds that 42% of respondents regularly evaluate suppliers on environmental and human rights performance. Another 33% have begun, or are currently launching, a green supply chain program.

While the KPMG survey finds that green procurement is on the rise, it also notes that suppliers’ sustainability and social responsibility records rank low among organizations’ priorities when compared to factors such as price, quality, and reliability.

“There are potential cost benefits to increased attention to sustainability, in particular from purchasing products which require fewer environmental inputs, such as energy,” says the report.

Drivers for building a green procurement strategy can also have knock-on effects to others areas of an organization. A recent report of U.K. IT professionals says the top driver for green IT planning is increasing pressure to reduce energy consumption - often the key green IT objective for sourcing policies as well.

To download the KPMG report, click here (PDF).

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28. September 2008 by admin.

Report: RFPs Critical to Green IT Success

Struggling to select the right vendors for your green IT upgrades? It all comes down to crafting the right request for proposal (RFP), according to a new Forrester survey.

The survey of U.K. IT professionals finds that well-structured RFP process is essential for any green IT plan to work. Specifically, the RFP process can provide a framework for discussion and gives vendors insight into how seriously the buyer takes its green agenda.

Here’s a peek at how companies are currently focusing their RFPs:

Survey respondents say the top driver for green IT planning is increasing pressure to reduce energy consumption - often the key green IT objective for sourcing policies as well, according to the report.

“Sourcing does not set the green IT agenda, but plays a pivotal role in its implementation, lending its expertise to ensure that vendors in the desktop and datacenter arenas, for example, align the green IT objectives,” the report notes.

The report suggests that the RFP can also signal which areas IT planners intend to push their vendors in the future. Forty-three percent of respondents say they will consider asking vendors to report on what they’ve done to clean up their own manufacturing process in IT products, while 41% will consider asking vendors about setting up a green code of conduct among their own suppliers.

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