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Ottawa takes step toward ‘ethical purchasing’ policy

14. June 2007 by admin.

Tobin Dalrymple, Ottawa Citizen
A report outlining the city’s ethical purchasing policy, which aims to ensure a “sweat-free” and fair-trade friendly Ottawa, was accepted Tuesday by a committee without any issue or debate.

The policy will now go to council later this month, and if it passes that point, will set-up a criteria for who the city will deal with. The policy makes clients who make clothing and agricultural products disclose the location and standards of its factories to make sure they are in line with international human-rights standards.

The city spends about $1.7-million a year on garments for its workers, including bus drivers, firefighters and by-law officers. Stakeholders who wrote the “no sweat” policy say it will focus primarily on preventing companies using sweat-shop labour from winning city contracts.

But the policy will also bring fair-trade products, such as coffee and tea, to municipal cafeterias.

Ottawa could be the fourth major city in Canada to adopt an ethical purchasing policy if it gets council’s green light following Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary.

Posted in Government Procurement, Ethical Procurement, Sustainable Procurement | No Comments »

New Zealand ‘CIPS’ Strategic Procurement Forum opening address: Excerpts

14. June 2007 by admin.

New Zealand ‘CIPS’ Strategic Procurement Forum opening address: Excerpts

Thursday, 14 June 2007

Hon Lianne Dalziel
Minister of Commerce

SkyCity Convention Centre , Auckland

Good morning. It is a pleasure as Minister of Commerce to welcome everyone to this, the first New Zealand Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply ‘CIPS’ Conference.

I accepted the invitation to do so, in order to say how pleased I am that New Zealand now has its own branch of CIPS, and how important that is to the government’s agenda – both in terms of procurement generally and in terms of sustainability in particular. Linking New Zealand procurement practitioners into a global community of over 42,000 members in 120 countries has got to be good for the profession…..

Key priorities for the group this year include incorporating sustainability principles into the government procurement policy and extending the scope of this policy beyond core departments….

To guide the application of sustainability principles, a national sustainable procurement framework leveraging off best-practice initiatives overseas is being developed. This framework will help provide consistency across government and guide the implementation of initiatives that relate to sustainable procurement.

Sustainable procurement is one of a package of six projects developed in the context of the government’s aim to make New Zealand the first truly sustainable nation, and the need for long term sustainability strategies to meet the challenges New Zealand faces in the 21st century….

the project that will be of particular interest is enhanced sustainable procurement. This is again led by the Ministry of Economic Development. It builds on progress made by the Ministry for the Environment’s Govt3 programme in achieving the necessary “cultural change” within the public sector to recognise and embed sustainability factors in procurement decisions.As well as integrating sustainability into a single government procurement policy and implementing a national framework for sustainable procurement, this project involves setting standards for sustainable procurement; developing sustainability performance indicators, targets and reporting mechanisms; and implementing a carbon costing methodology for procurement decisions.

By September this year specific standards will be mandated across public service departments. These include: paper (including recycled content and default duplexing); timber and wood products (to ensure they are legally sourced); travel (for motor vehicles and air travel versus video conferencing); and light fittings (for energy efficiency). These will be rolled out to the wider state sector over longer timeframes. A wider range of sustainability standards will be developed over time targeting areas of greatest impact, such as buildings, ICT equipment, white goods, textiles, uniforms and cleaning products.
The Ministry of Economic Development will work closely with the Ministry for the Environment, the State Services Commission, and the Treasury to develop sustainable procurement key performance indicators and targets for inclusion in agency performance agreements….

We know that building capability is critical for the successful implementation of the new single procurement policy and creating a shared understanding of sustainable procurement across the wider state sector. Adoption of the existing government procurement policy has not been as fast as we would like, and adherence to it has been somewhat patchy, largely as a result of the variation in procurement practice and capability amongst departments.

The Government Procurement Development Group understands the need to attract and retain procurement professionals and raise their professional status. The Group is working closely with CIPS as the peak procurement professional body for New Zealand procurement practitioners and professionals. It also endorses the MCIPS International Standard as a certification level that procurement practitioners will be encouraged to aspire to….

I hope you get a lot out of today’s forum and I look forward to seeing the results of your determination to lift the bar when it comes to sustainable government procurement.

Full transcript of the speech available at:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0706/S00252.htm

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Army Environmental Programs Awarded for Making a Difference

14. June 2007 by admin.

Army Environmental Programs Awarded for Making a Difference

Jun 13, 2007
BY Kristin Miller

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.

Posted in Sustainable Procurement, Green Purchasing | No Comments »

Rutgers leads the way in “green” purchasing

13. June 2007 by admin.

Rutgers leads the way in “green” purchasing

Environmentally-friendly products and companies are the preferred choice in campus business

By Ashanti M. Alvarez

Kevin Lyons’s job description – director of the universitywide purchasing department since 2005 – doesn’t begin to describe the work that he does.

“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.”

Posted in Sustainable Procurement, Green Purchasing | No Comments »

IT is thinking green but not yet acting it

12. June 2007 by admin.

IT is thinking green but not yet acting it

Most survey respondents unclear on vendors’ environmental commitment

By Christopher Mines, Framingham | Monday, 11 June, 2007

Information technology is going green. At least IT systems vendors are, with announcements of new energy-efficient servers, datacentre power and cooling products, and device recycling initiatives coming thick and fast these days. But what about IT buyers? Are they listening and do they care? After all, it’s users’ procurement processes and operational and asset management practices that will ultimately determine whether green IT is for real or just another passing fad.

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.

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

Nature group helps Epson with ‘green’ purchasing

8. June 2007 by admin.

Nature group helps Epson with ‘green’ purchasing

By Paul Snell

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Japan has helped Epson produce an ethical paper purchasing policy.

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.

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

Government ‘goes green with office furniture’

8. June 2007 by admin.

Government ‘goes green with office furniture’…..”Given our purchasing volumes and our policy on green procurement, the government is well-positioned to have a significant and positive impact on the environment,” explained minister Michael M Fortier……

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INTERVIEW: Procurement professionals must drive green sourcing success

31. May 2007 by admin.

INTERVIEW: Procurement professionals must drive green sourcing success

Mike Arenth, vice president of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at spend management software specialist Ariba, argues that basic procurement management principles can be applied to drive green sourcing strategies.

BusinessGreen: How important is the issue of sustainability to procurement professionals? Aren’t they solely focused on value for money?
Mike Arenth: There’s no doubt green sourcing is a topic on almost every businesses’ agenda. Ariba recently did some research into the attitudes of 300 CPO’s [chief procurement officers] across Europe with the HEC [business school] in Paris and found that sustainable procurement is entrenched as one of their top three priorities. But at the same time we recently had a major conference of procurement professionals and over half of attendees said that while green sourcing was key to their corporate strategy they were not really aware of how to achieve it. The implementation is where people are struggling.

So how do you overcome those implementation problems? What best practices should businesses keen to achieve sustainable sourcing be following?
The first thing you need to get is visibility over who you are buying from and that is a huge issue before you even start to think of issues around sustainability. A lot of the time procurement managers only handle a proportion of total spend and areas like marketing spend and fleet spend are managed separately. Only a few CPO’s have 100 percent visibility over procurement and it is very tough to get the internal processes in place to ensure full compliance with any sustainable sourcing strategy without full visibility.

But even if you do have visibility over what you are buying what is to stop different departments still buying environmentally harmful products?
Once you have awareness over what you are buying and from whom the next step is to then set up a supplier performance management system where sustainability if a key KPI [key performance indicator]. Without procurement involved setting those KPIs people will just continue to go to the companies they know and internal compliance [with the sustainable procurement policy] will be compromised. With KPI’s in place they know their procurement performance is being judged on these environmental criteria.

How will monitoring supplier performance improve environmental sustainability?
By requesting environmental information you are asking your suppliers to become more accountable and then you can put that information into a balance scorecard and measure their performance, creating an incentive for them to improve.

How do you ensure that they are not simply passing environmental problems back through the supply chain to their suppliers? A manufacturer for example could simply pay a sub contractor to make the most polluting components and then tell their customers in all honesty that they had a good environmental record?
The end customers’ supplier performance management system has to go several stages back through the supply chain. You need an understanding of your suppliers’ supply base and what they are doing to transform their supply base. If you look at Wal-Mart’s sustainability strategy they are demanding CO2 reductions right back through their supply chain.

Is it fair to say only the largest companies can afford to set up such green sourcing strategies?
I don’t think so. These types of procurement systems and processes can be developed at the largest organisations and at the smallest. It all comes down to procurement having a key role in the business and the ability to assess suppliers correctly. It needs to become an embedded part of how you do business.

How difficult will it prove for firms to adopt these green procurement strategies?
Nothing here is that revolutionary. These types of systems and processes are already applied to cover non-green issues when firms are dealing with their suppliers. You already do a supplier audit to check they are complying with other regulations governing workforce diversity, workplace conditions, etc, so you can bring that same model across to cover environmental standards. If you are a manufacturer buying materials from China, for example, you should already use a third party auditor to check on staff conditions and the like so it is not a huge leap to get an auditor to look at environmental factors.

Procurement has never been regarded as that core by most businesses – will that attitude hamper the adoption of green sourcing?
Procurement is already transforming from a back office function to more of a business partnership and the whole green sourcing agenda is a big factor that will really accelerate that transition. If you are to have an effective green procurement strategy then the procurement professionals really do need to be working in close partnership with all other departments.

About Mike Arenth

Mike Arenth is vice president and general manager for Ariba in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

He joined Ariba in 2002 and before moving to Europe was managing director fo the software vendor’s strategy team in North America.

Before joining Ariba Arenth was a senior manager with Andersen Business Consulting. He holds a a B.A. in Economics from The Johns Hopkins University and an M.B.A. in Finance from The George Washington School of Business and Public Management.

Posted by James Murray on May 16, 2007 | Permalink

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Buy-in for greener buying

31. May 2007 by admin.

Buy-in for greener buying

Sustainable procurement guidance aims to put pressure on government departments to change buying behaviour

Rachael Singh, Financial Director, 29 Mar 2007

In March, the government decided to set a benchmark for environmentally-friendly procurement by issuing its UK Government Sustainable Procurement Action Plan. Currently, the guidance is aimed at government departments, but a set of measures aimed at changing public behaviour on climate change will be unveiled later this spring.

The Sustainable Procurement Task Force challenges the government to use its immense buying power to transform government procurement. The goal is to make the UK an EU leader in sustainable procurement by 2009 and to produce a low carbon-emitting, more resource-efficient public sector.The plan details eight areas of change and reporting needed to achieve this goal:Comprehensive spending review
• A set of public service agreements will incorporate sustainable development.Priorities and future plans
• A sustainable policy framework to be issued to government departments, with departments to comply towards their sustainable operation targets as well as setting out to develop their framework throughout 2007.Strengthening leadership
• Delivery will be overseen by the Ministerial Committee on Energy and Environment.
• The head of the civil service will oversee the plans and report progress in 2008.
• Permanent secretaries will be accountable for their department’s progress, as well as ensuring that from 2007/08 their departments have performance objectives and drive towards implementation of the plan.
• The head of Government Procurement Services (GPS) and the chief executive of the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) are accountable for the procurement practices and will be part of normal procurement policy from 2007/08.Budgeting and accounting practice
• To improve departmental practice through better compliance with current government policy on value for money; for example, committing departments to review their budgeting arrangements to ensure that there are no problems in choosing sustainable solutions.

Building capacity
• Improving public servants’ sustainable development skills.
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to provide support through workshops seeking help on flexible framework.
• OGC will audit standards set through procurement capability reviews of departments.
• Consultation with Defra on a centre for sustainability procurement, providing support, guidance and advice.

Raising standards
• From 1 April 2015 only sustainable timber can be used.
• Departments will be asked to choose PCs and office equipment that consume less energy.

Market engagement and capturing innovation
• The Department of Trade and Industry will look at ways that the government can deliver better value for money through procurement. For example, the DTI and Cabinet Office to provide support to SMEs and third sector organisations that supply to the public sector; and Defra to work with suppliers to develop voluntary commitments in achieving low carbon emissions in its supply chain.

Scrutiny and reporting
The Sustainable Development Commission to have a ‘watchdog’ role and will report on progress. The SDC is to compile a review of the plan and progress by 2008.
The overall objectives of the procurement plan are:
• By 2020, the government to reduce emissions by 180,000 tonnes of C02 a year.
• By 2012 achieve a carbon neutral office by offsetting around 550,000 tonnes of C02 per annum.
• By 2020, government to improve energy efficiency by approximately 100kWh per square metre.
• By 2020, government to reduce its total waste, and recycle around 65,000 tonnes.
• By 2020, government to reduce water consumption by around 65,000 cubic metres.

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PSE&G plans green automotive fleet

31. May 2007 by admin.

Newark Star Ledger - Newark,NJ,USA
The new hybrid trucks were just recently introduced to the market, with the utility purchasing two. The cost: about $360000 for the two hybrids, …

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