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).

Posted in Green Computing, Sustainable Procurement | No Comments »

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.

Posted in Green Computing, Sustainable Procurement | No Comments »

13. September 2007 by admin.

ARNnet - From the Top: Toshiba’s Mark Whittard - Mobile trends and green computing
Green computing is becoming a major industry concern. What is Toshiba doing to improve its carbon footprint?

MW: A lot of the government-based reports have been rightly focused on the trade-in and deployment end of the cycle. What they’re becoming more aware of, and where our focus is, is the entire lifecycle and there are five elements here. The first thing is component procurement and where materials for those come from. Toshiba is one of the few vendors that publishes strict green procurement guidelines. Additionally, we were the first to launch a fully Restriction of Hazardous Substances [RoHS] compliant computer in 2004.

Posted in Green Computing, Green Procurement, Sustainable Procurement | No Comments »

30. August 2007 by admin.

Dell announces another EPEAT gold-rated PC
August 29, 2007

EPEAT is a US green success story. Here in the UK we have a government doing SFA in this area.

EPEAT, the US PC and notebook environmental ratings agency has quietly and steadily gone about setting up an effective three-tier green rating with support from manufacturers and, crucially, a mandate from the US government that all federal PC and notebook purchases must be of EPEAT-rated kit.

Dell has just announced a gold-rated desktop PC and suppliers like Lenovo and HP are actively getting products rated and product designs amended so as to deliver EPEAT ratings success. With US federal purchases leading the way corporate purchasers should follow suit as it’s an easy green ‘marketing win’ for them. It all leads to lower carbon emissions from PC use, less hazardous waste and better recycling.

Meanwhile the UK governments sits on its PC/notebook procurement bottom and does nothing. Is this the NIH (not invented here) phenomenon at work? Why isn’t the UK government mandating green PC purchases? All it needs do is to say that from a date in the future only EPEAT-rated PCs and notebooks will be bought by central and local UK government purchasing authorities.

Such purchasing is under the aegis of the Office of Government Commerce. A mildly green statement on its website says: “OGC is fully engaged with the work of the Sustainable Procurement Task Force as it develops the national action plan.”

A national action plan sounds impressive. The SPTA web site states (in August 2007) that: “The National Action Plan summarises the views and position of the members of the Sustainable Procurement Task Force. It gives recommendations on how the UK Government can succesfully meet its target of being recognised as amongst the leaders in sustainable procurement across EU Member States by 2009. The UK Government will review the National Action Plan and respond in full in Autumn 2006.”

Oops; Autumn 2006. Did we hear anything? Has the site been updated? No and no, not since July 2006. The national action plan’s first recommendation is: “for government to Lead by example.” Cue derisive laughter offstage.

The OGC is an office of the Treasury and has an executive buying agency, OGCbuying.solutions, to do the buying. It has a new chief executive coming in October.

Basically the UK government is following the SFA policy. There is a national action plan talking shop, the conspicuous failure to lead by example, the Treasury holding the purse strings and a chief executive hiatus in the buying agency. All in all, a recipe for nothing happening.

What does the acronym SFA mean? Why, sweet Fanny Adams of course.

Posted in Green Computing, Sustainable Procurement | No Comments »