Procurement
Being conscious of what your school purchases and how those
purchases affect the environment is a preemptive strategy for making
your school green. Environmentally responsible procurement has
two main components. The first is to develop a policy where
your school decides why its important to purchase environmentally
friendly products, what qualities make a product environmentally
friendly, and which items you want to focus on when you consider
making more responsible purchases. The second component of
responsible procurement is applying your policy to the purchasing
decisions you actually make, considering the cost, quality, and
quantity of each item and how it fits into your budget.
The purchasing policy you develop can not only have an enormous impact
on your school’s ecological footprint, but the health of your fellow
staff and students. For example, the cleaning products you buy directly affect the health of everyone
in the building and the health of the environment when they are
disposed. According to
Healthy Cleaning, there has been a 25% increase in cancer rates
among children 15 years-old and younger in the past 25 years.
Could this be linked to the increasing number of everyday chemicals
they are exposed to? Just in the last 40 years, 70,000 new
chemicals have been produced and are being released into the
environment according to
Healthy Cleaning. An environmentally responsible
purchasing policy in your school could have a direct influence on
everyone in your building and can help be a force of change in the
economy.
The Center for Environmental Education is working to bring you more guidance
and resources to help you develop and utilize a purchasing policy in
your school.
Want to get started right away? Check out this
helpful
guide for developing an environmental purchasing policy from
New American Dream.
For guidance in policy and procurement of specific items, reference these guides
provided by the
Responsible Purchasing Network:
For additional guidance, consider
Buying for the Future: Contract Management and the Environmental
Challenge by
Kevin Lyons, Director of the purchasing department at Rutgers
University. The book covers the ins and outs of environmental
purchasing policies, processes, and strategies, including
environmental contracts, recycling practices, and even how to reach
out to the local community with your actions.