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CREATING A GREEN BUYING PROGRAMME

There is  little need to exude the importance of environmentally sound business practice, we are informed on an almost daily basis ,through television and tabloid, the consequences of ill managed projects leading to one man made environmental disaster after another.

Employees within a companies procurement department may feel this is a little outside their job remit.     If however you are interested in raising the profile of the purchasing department and your professionalism directly, then read on.

Purchasing professionals are directly in line with the supply of materials into their organisation and as such have great influence on an organisations environmental policy.   If you have not thought if it yet, you can help in the establishment of a Green Buying Programme that is not just beneficial to the environment but also a great asset to you and your organisation.

I've gathered together a straightforward guide to help you establish a project like this. It must be said that this is not an all inclusive template but it does provide a framework from where to start.

Step 1: Appoint a Green Task Force
The first step in organising a green buying program is to assemble a team to oversee the programme. Their main objective is to translate your environmental goals into purchasing strategies. The task force is also responsible for maintaining interest in the program and addressing the needs of buyers.

Members of this team can include all staff whose input is critical to making the program work. The task force begins by establishing its objectives, which could include the following activities:

• identify target areas or departments for green buying
• explore environmentally-preferable alternatives to products and services you are currently using
• create and confirm an action plan
• discuss individual staff responsibilities

Step 2: Develop Your Mission and Purchasing Targets
A policy or mission statement can help point you in the right direction and identify the broad goals that your company or department will pursue. Organisations often commit to the following principles:

• using fewer resources
• generating less waste
• considering the life-cycle costs of purchases
• considering environmental criteria with other business criteria (such  as cost, functionality and availability)

Your mission statement will help shape purchasing policy; but turning policy into practice requires identifying specific targets. Purchasing targets should be specific and measurable (expressed as either a percent of product purchased or a Euro amount invested).

• Use percentage change goals instead of numerical targets. For example,  commit to make 50% of your paper purchases recycled by a specific date.  That's easier to publicise and has meaning for a broad community, whereas  saying that you'll purchase 1,000 reams of recycled paper gives no indication  of the extent of the change you're making.
• Identify deadlines and responsible persons or departments.
• Set attainable standards that require some change in how you do business and how your vendors meet your needs.

Step 3: Incorporate Preferences into Purchasing Documents
Structure your specifications, requests for proposals (RFPs) and other purchasing tools to favour environmentally preferable products, making their purchase more likely in the future. To ensure that buying practices really change, it could recommend that you use one of the following tools:

• Environmentally friendly products need not necessarily be more expensive. If it's unavoidable and acceptable then you could look at price preferences -- a percentage above average costs (for example,  2% higher) that you're willing to pay for environmentally preferable products
• set-asides -- a percentage of your total purchases that you allocate  to environmentally preferable products (for example, making 25% of your  computers energy-efficient)

If you use product specifications, review them to be sure they encourage the purchase of environmentally preferable products:

• Avoid language that excludes environmentally preferable products.
• Allow vendors with varied capabilities to compete.

The following points highlight ways to structure RFPs to ensure that they are consistent with your green buying programme:

• Adopt a green purchasing policy with specific goals and targets, and  give a copy to all your vendors.
• Commit to purchasing on the basis of life cycle costs, not purchase price.
• Construct purchasing criteria to favour products that meet the criteria established.
• Insist on complete disclosure from suppliers and manufacturers regarding chemicals used to manufacture products.
• Consider designing specifications to favour companies that will take  back goods that have reached the end of their useful lives.
• Specify that products be easily and cost-efficiently repaired.
• Don't include specifications that are irrelevant for the intended use.
• Don't set short time lines for purchases in which you are trying to reach out to new distributors for environmentally preferable products.
• Don't let preferred vendor contracts exclude environmentally preferable  product and service distributors.

Step 4: Calculate the Costs of Buying Green
Some green products initially save money while others cost more up-front. However, environmental purchasing should save money over the long term. By developing a comprehensive programme using a mix of initiatives, you can produce a savings or, at least, no net increase in cost.

Using life-cycle cost (LCC)-the cost of manufacturing, operating, maintaining and disposing of a product-enables you to compare different products by determining their real prices with a common measure. Sometimes, environmentally preferable products cost more than their alternatives, even on a life-cycle basis. This discrepancy usually occurs for one of three reasons: these are emerging technologies, products are inefficiently distributed, or environmental costs are not captured in costs of competing products.

It is also helpful to keep track of the savings that environmentally preferable products offer over their alternatives by measuring or estimating savings. In some cases, the savings might be significant, and in others it won't. But there may be reasons to make the purchase anyway. For example, it might significantly raise environmental consciousness in your organisation if you switch all of your company's letterhead, copy paper and business cards.

Step 5: Purchase and Test Products
Switching to new products requires input from those who will be using them:

• Conduct research around the organisation to help you deliver effective products and diffuse staff resistance to change. Initiate informal working groups  or interviews to boost acceptance of new products.
• Since performance must always be  considered, remember a step by step approach is advisable. Purchase a few of these products and evaluate them using trial  runs. For example, you can test recycled paper in your copiers or laser  printers.