The (Im)Possibility of Green Purchasing on the Smith Campus:
Limiting Consumption, Considering Means of Production, and Understanding Smith’s
Institutional Environmental Impact
Mandi Norton-Westbrook
EVS 300 Final Project
Smith College
May 10, 2007
1
ABSTRACT
This paper considers the potential adoption of a green purchasing policy for the
Smith campus. Specifically, it looks at the work of the Committee on Sustainability (COS)
and its proposed policy from Spring 2007. My research consists of quantitative and
qualitative research, including a quantitative study of green alternative office products
for the Science Center, interviews and meetings with a variety of community members,
research about other green purchasing policies, and my own participation on the COS
subcommittee on green purchasing. Drawing on these sources, my research reveals
several considerations for the adoption of a green purchasing policy: a decentralized
system of purchasing, the need for administrative support, product consistency and
quality, the development of a sustainability criteria, infrastructural reinforcement, and
cost. These considerations were used to construct a plan of action as to how the college
can purchase in a more sustainable fashion. The college will need to conduct a baseline
study of its purchasing in different departments, run campaigns that alert the community
to our purchasing decisions and environmental impacts, and critically think about means
of reducing our consumption. The first step to such a plan would be the implementation
of the work-study program suggested by the COS to the administration.
INTRODUCTION
A History of Green Purchasing
Green purchasing arose within the environmental movement as a means of
converting consumption into a location of political potential and action. Green purchasing
borrows language and a conceptualization of consumption and environmental
degradation from two different sectors of the environmental movement: environmental
preferential purchasing (EPP) and green consumerism. In order to understand the way in
which green purchasing has entered the political conversation on the Smith campus, I will
outline a brief history of the EPP and green consumer movements.
EPP standards emerged during the 1990s as different governmental entities came to
examine their purchasing decisions’ environmental impacts. On a federal level,
environmental-preferential purchasing grew out the October 20, 1993 Executive Order
12873, “Federal Acquisition, Recycling, and Waste Prevention,” and September 14, 1998
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Executive Order 13101, “Greening the Government Through Waste Prevention,
Recycling, and Federal Acquisition” (EPA, 12). EPP guidelines are an expansion of the
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines
(CPG) program for the federal government’s “buy-recycled” program. EPP guidelines are
defined in the following way by the EPA: “EPP means selecting ‘products or services
that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared
with competing products or services that serve the same purpose.’” (EPA, 12). The EPA
generated EPP standards as a guide to how government institutions can make
economically-sensical and environmentally-aware decisions. To date, EPP standards have
been adopted by many different municipalities and serve as models to understand how
Smith can decrease its environmental impact via purchasing decisions. Furthermore, EPP
standards have created an infrastructure, such as vendor fairs, contracts, and industry
standards, which Smith could potentially utilize.
Parallel to this change in governmental purchasing procedures, the green
consumer movement began. The green consumer movement stresses the power
individuals have in their individual consumer choices. Historically, green consumerism
attracts an upper middle class with a disposable income (Gardyn, 31). The ease and
corresponding dependence on a hegemonic culture of consumerism serve as points of
both attraction to and criticism of buying green.
The questionability of consumerism as a form of political participation highlights
the contradictory construction of green consumption that Smith should be aware of in its
pursuit of a green purchasing policy. Consumption itself is a use of resources and Smith
should be wary of succumbing to a “green-washed” image of sustainability that only
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commodifies sustainability as a catch-all phrase and does little to nothing to affect
Smith’s environmental footprint (Anderson, 292). The following quote from scholar,
Robert D. Sack, illustrates the pacifying capabilities of using consumption as a form of
political action.
Consumption is more of a hybrid language than most. It borrows
material and forms of expressions from anywhere and everywhere, but
its primary rhetorical device is indirection. We have said products
promise to create contexts, to link individuals to groups, and to
communicate meanings (Sack 658).
Sack and other academics, such as Jennifer Price and Matthew Klingle, alert us to the
danger of failing to make the connection between consumer culture and its use of natural
materials in production.
However, despite (or perhaps including these criticisms), green purchasing has
come to be a model for educational institutions that fit neither model of environmentallyaware consumption (EPP guidelines and the green consumerism movement). Green
purchasing provides guidelines for institutional purchasing decisions in a way that applies
the decision-making guidelines of EPP to smaller scale institutions that are too large to fit
within the parameters of being individual green consumers.
Green Purchasing on the Smith Campus
The issue of green purchasing presents three questions with which this report will
engage. (1) How can Smith buy more sustainable products? What factors should be taken
into account in identifying sustainable products? (2) How could Smith be more efficient
in its use of resources through its consumption? (3) After parameters have been set for a
policy, what are the best means of implementation?
4
I became interested in this project after I joined the Committee on Sustainability
(COS) in the Fall of 2006. Through my participation on the committee and my prior
environmental work on the Smith campus, I began to consider the means through which
Smith could come to think critically about its institutional role in environmental
degradation. I am attracted to the notion of green purchasing because it demands a
consideration about mandatory institutional choices; Smith is a larger consumer of goods
and will continue to be for the rest of its institutional life. However, Smith does have the
ability and responsibility to make informed purchasing decisions that seek to limit
Smith’s environmental impact.
The goals of this project are two fold: (1) to better understand the potential issues
with and obstacles to implementing a green purchasing system on the Smith campus and
(2) to generate solutions to these issues and outline a system of implementing the
proposed green purchasing system. Part of my work involved understanding how
networks of decision-making on the Smith campus could be utilized to best allow for
effective green purchasing. My hope is that this project will serve as a guide for the
students involved in the work-study program proposed by the COS, outlined on page 5.
Smith’s recent sustainability initiatives speak to the positive direction in which
the institution is moving. Current green initiatives seek to identify ways in which Smith
can save money through more efficient use of products and procedures. While these
projects create a context conducive to green purchasing by raising awareness of how our
decisions impact the environment, the college needs to acknowledge that there are some
areas in which decisions need to be made because they are the right decisions, not
decisions that save money. Many environmental-preferable practices and products can
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save the college money, but there are some changes that need to happen that will be an
immediate expenditure. The college needs to reorient its conceptualization of cost to
include ecological and sustainable costs and adjust its trajectory to understand economic
choices outside of an economic market.
At the conclusion of the 2005-2006 academic year, Smith published eight
Strategic Planning goals, one of which was to “Support and Promote Environmental
Sustainability.”1 During the months of January and February 2007, the College solicited
proposals. Strategic Planning has allowed for a flood of sustainable initiatives to solicit
funding, including the advent of the Center for the Environment and the position of the
Sustainability Coordinator. These institutional moves provide potential entry points for a
green purchasing policy at Smith. For example, one of the submitted proposals was from
Kathy Zieja (Dining Services), Ann Finley (Dining Services), and Roger Guzowski
(Five-College Recycling). The proposal set out to identify sustainability goals as they
pertain to Dining Services and Building Services.
The COS began to address the issue of green purchasing in Fall 2006 and created
a subcommittee to tackle writing and implementing a policy. The subcommittee on green
purchasing was formed in September 2006. Ann Finley (Area Manager at Dining
Services), Roger Guzowski (Five-College Recycling Coordinator), Joanne Benkley
(Environmental Science and Policy Program Coordinator), Leslie King (Professor of
Sociology and COS Co-Chair), and I made up the committee. On March 14th, 2007, the
subcommittee brought the proposal to the committee. The committee approved the
proposal and on April 16, Leslie King, as co-chair of COS, sent the proposal to President
1
Please see “Literature Cited” on page 17 to find full citations for college documents.
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Carol Christ. The proposal outlines considerations for buying green and departmentspecific examples (Appendix, i). In her letter to the administration, Professor King
suggested the implementation of a work-study program in which students would be
paired with departments interested in going green.
The proposed work-study would serve as the first step to green purchasing.
Ideally, student workers would generate a baseline set of data about what is already being
purchased. Using that information, they would then investigate means of reduction and
alternative products and submit a detailed plan for making greener departmental
decisions. These recommendations would be guided by the proposed green purchasing
policy’s definition of sustainability that seeks to identify products that:
• Use the least possible energy throughout their life-cycle
• Use the fewest natural resources throughout their life-cycle
• Generate the least amount of hazardous materials throughout their
life-cycle (Appendix, i).
These principles along with a discussion of the need for social justice and economic
considerations compromise the current guiding definition of sustainability. The challenge
then becomes the best means of interpreting this definition for the green product
identification and implementing such a program.
METHODOLOGY
Having situated Smith’s efforts to buy green in a larger sociopolitical context and
outlined the current state of developing a green purchasing policy on the campus, I will
turn to the methods of my study. My research is drawn from four sources: (1) my
participation on the Committee on Sustainability subcommittee on Green Purchasing, (2)
a quantitative study of the cost of buying recycled office products for the Science Center;
(3) interviews with a variety of professors and staff members, and (4) research on green
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purchasing policies at other institutions, including city governments, universities, and forprofit companies.
In the Fall of 2006, I joined the presidentially-appointed Committee on
Sustainability as a student representative. In drafting the policy, the subcommittee
utilized the resources of the Center for a New American Dream, a non-profit that works
on issues pertaining to sustainability and social justice.2 Starting with a green purchasing
policy model Joanne Benkley found on their website, the subcommittee worked to adapt
the model policy to better fit the Smith campus.
I decided to pursue green purchasing as the topic of my EVS 300 final project and
consulted the members of the subcommittee about where my efforts would be best
served. Upon the subcommittee’s recommendation, I contacted Tom Litwin, Director of
the Science Center and co-chair of COS. He was interested in using the Science Center as
a model and put me in contact with Betty Daignault, the head purchaser for the Science
Center. Tom introduced me and Betty and the two of us proceeded to design a project
that would be helpful for her. She identified the top five most-frequently purchased office
items (Appendix, viii). I performed a cost analysis of the green alternatives to these
items, identifying products comparable in performance and quality with more recycled
content. This process itself revealed many considerations that needed to be fully thought
through for green purchasing; in other words, the study yielded less quantitative results
and more of a qualitative analysis of the necessary steps needed in order perform a
comprehensive quantitative study. As the results indicate, the study itself led to many
issues surrounding the identification of a sustainable alternative.
2
For more information about the Center for a New American Dream, please refer to the Resource CD.
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The third component of my project involved interviewing a variety of professors
and staff members.3 After meeting with various members of the Smith community, I
attempted to incorporate their perspectives into my report. I hope that I have represented
themes and repeated concerns in my collection of data.
The fourth component of my project centered on my research of the EPP
guidelines, EPP vendors, green products and vendors, and different universities’
employment of such resources. This aspect of my research allowed me to understand the
infrastructure for green purchasing that exists outside of the Smith community and how
similar institutions have utilized these systems in their attempts to buy green. My hope is
that this report will serve as a guide to the history and current potential of green
purchasing on the Smith campus, its structural problems, and a potential plan of action to
address these issues.
RESULTS
The following issues reappeared throughout my research. As a small liberal arts
institution, Smith is positioned as a large-scale purchaser that yields little power over the
college purchasing because of its relative size to other schools. It is important to
understand the ways in which green purchasing occurs on the Smith campus without a
formal policy and the ways in which Smith could improve its purchasing policies. The
following section outlines structural considerations for Smith’s adoption of a formal
green purchasing policy.
3
For a full list of my interviews, please refer to the “Literature Cited” section of this paper on page 17.
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(1) System of purchasing
Historically, Smith has operated with a centralized purchasing system. Over the
past few years, after the elimination of the chief buyer position, purchasing at Smith has
become decentralized. Centralized stocking disassembled for a variety of reasons
including the varied needs of departments and the fixed costs of labor in the stockroom
(Interview with Roger Guzowski, 4/19/06). Furthermore, the stockroom itself took up a
large space in Physical Plant and necessitated climate control.
The resulting decentralized purchasing system of Smith differentiates itself from
its peers. Smith currently assigns purchasing to individual departments. Purchasers for
departments fall into two categories: (1) full-time positions for larger programs, such as
Dining Services and Physical Plant or; (2) administrative employees for smaller
departments and programs who handle purchasing along with many other administrative
duties. Both categories of purchasers have little time to negotiate a green criteria unless
they are individually-motivated and receive departmental and administrative support.
Currently, purchasing decisions are dictated by a variety of factors, including
contracts and purchasing policies. Currently, purchasing decisions are made on efficiency
(Interview with Stanley Rosko, 5/4/07). This trajectory allows for a consideration of a
product’s raw materials, its durability, its lifespan, and the necessary maintenance. While
efficiency considerations often overlap with environmental concerns, the site of decisionmaking itself is unclear and there are no formal entry points for environmental
considerations that are not encompassed by efficiency.4 The result is that purchasing
4
By entry point, I mean a step in decision-making that demands a consideration of the decision’s
environmental impact.
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works as a fragmented system with high degrees of variance and personal and
departmental input.
While purchasing is decentralized, there is a purchasing department, housed in
Physical Plant. Stanley Rosko, Senior Buyer for Purchasing, makes contracts. The
availability of green (and affordable) products is highly dependent on vendors and their
interest in selling these products. In my interviews, purchasers spoke to the entry of green
products into the general market. However, some vendors, such as WB-Mason, our
primary office supply vendor, are just beginning to market green products.
Contracts are generally five-year contracts or three-year contracts with an option
to renew for two years. However, there is no infrastructure for the communication of
when a contract is up for renegotiation. Although the information itself is public, there
are no avenues for delivering this public information. Despite the signing of these
primary vendor contracts, individual purchasers do not necessarily have to use them. For
many items, purchasers are granted autonomy in their purchasing decisions. The resulting
purchasing system is the result of contracts with large companies and the dispersed,
fragmented nature of individual purchasers’ decision. While this relative autonomy has
provided some, such as Dining Services buyers and Project Managers at Physical Plant,
with an opportunity to initiate green purchasing initiatives, the dispersed nature of the
decentralized system present serious structural considerations.5
5
Dining Services serves as an excellent example of successful green purchasing; their moves to buy local
have been successful. It should be noted that some of the components of this success lie in a general
consensus among management in Dining Services, an obvious sustainable criteria (local), the direct
relationship between product, image, and community, and the ability to integrate local foods into their
budget.
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(2) Need for administrative support
While working with Betty, it became apparent to me that one of the major
obstacles to green purchasing is the limited resource of time that purchasers have to
devote to identifying more sustainable alternatives. Also, purchasers must create time
within their schedules to evaluate their current purchases and chose alternatives. Because
Smith operates with a system of decentralized purchasing, there is little infrastructure for
individual purchasers to utilize in any attempt to buy green. Furthermore, the
decentralized system insures that purchasers are fulfilling the needs of one program,
department, service, or center and correspondingly provides a disincentive for purchasers
to invest the time and energy into buying green as their effect will be limited to a small
scale. Additionally, there is no infrastructure through which to receive funding for green
purchasing as purchasing is done through individual departments’ budgets.
(3) Product consistency and quality
An issue that was repeatedly brought up in terms of the execution of a green
purchasing policy is insuring a functional purchasing system. In designing the execution
of a green purchasing policy, it is important to consider where there is room for change in
cultural attitudes towards consumption (quantity, scale, and use) and where there is not
(timescale, formal/polished appearance, and cost). As Smith is an elite private institution
of higher education, purchasers are acutely aware of the products that they are delivering
to their departments; these products are regulated by a tight timescale, an appearance of
professionalism and formality, and departmental budgets. The language of the purposed
purchasing policy stresses the need to recognize an individual purchaser’s role in
providing a sound product for his/her constituents; the language of “when economic and
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performance criteria do not prohibit” acknowledges the complex needs and
considerations that purchasers undertake (Appendix, i).
(4) Development of sustainability criteria
The green purchasing plan speaks to a concept of sustainability that examines the
“triple bottom line:” the economic, environmental, and social feasibility. Smith needs to
create a sustainability criteria that acknowledges its placement as an institutional
purchaser. Because Smith operates with decentralized purchasers, current green decisions
are not being made with universal considerations. It is important that the standards of a
green purchasing policy provide both a universal definition of sustainability and its
pragmatic tenets and take into consideration the various needs of different programs. For
example, green purchasing means something radically different for Physical Plant than a
small academic program. Smith’s sustainability criteria must acknowledge its
institutional scale and (limited) power and provide a concrete route for making green
decisions.
(5) Infrastructural reinforcement
Ultimately, effective green purchasing policies need to affect community
members’ disposition towards consumption; we need to create infrastructure to support
our consumer choices. It is crucial to design systems that allow for effective and efficient
use of products and that provide public education about what we buy and how it affects
the environment.
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(6) Cost
The bottom line for most purchasing decisions is cost; purchasers seek the best
quality product for the lowest price. The college must counter this bottom line by
amending it to look at other costs, besides dollars and cents, and providing additional
funds where necessary to offset the economic difference.
DISCUSSION
My findings suggest a range of structural issues. In attempting to remedy these
issues, I believe that it is critical to think about what purchasing means for Smith. It is
clear that developing a green purchasing policy necessitates a cultural shift in the way
Smith community members’ view consumption. My plan of action seeks to outline my
recommendations for creating a culture and infrastructure conducive to giving green
purchasing a chance on the Smith campus. My plan of action consists of the following:
(1) REDUCE.
• The first step to a green purchasing policy is encouraging reduction of consumption.
This can be achieved through outreach and education about what we are buying, how it
affects the environment, and ways in which we are attempting to mitigate these impacts.
These outreach campaigns should stress what we are already doing in the direction of
sustainability, where individuals can affect positive change through efficient use, and
what we are aiming to do in the future.
(2) Create forums and points of entry for considering sustainability.
• Green purchasing necessitates checks and balances. Purchasing decisions need to have a
sustainability filter. Currently, Smith makes institutional decisions through a variety of
filters, such as financial, health, and student life (Meeting with Leslie King and Tom
Litwin, 5/8/07). There is an existing infrastructure for making these decisions: the
Committee on Mission and Priorities. An effective green purchasing policy would
integrate a sustainability filter into CMP’s decisions through the inclusion of the COS,
Sustainability Coordinator, or other entity. This filter would produce more
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communication about purchasing and allow for the green purchasing policy to be
proactive rather than reactive.
• Similarly, contracts need to include a sustainability consideration. By alerting our
vendors towards our sustainability initiatives through formal means, purchasers can
engage in decision-making that includes sustainability as part of the bottom line.
(3) Prioritize and create a sustainability criteria.
• Further discussion about how the campus plans to prioritize the three components of
sustainability (economic, social, and environmental) is needed.
• An operational manual, including resources and products, for purchasers would be an
ideal means of communicating a sustainability criteria and allowing for changes in
market and environmental considerations.6
(4) Conduct a baseline study of purchasing and its environmental effects.
• By examining what we buy, we can set concrete goals for reduction. Before anyone can
suggest sustainable alternatives, s/he needs to know what is already being purchased,
from who, and what sort of environmental impact these products have.
(5) Identify “low-hanging fruit.”
• We need to prioritize the order in which we will change things. We need to think
critically about what can most readily be changed to have the biggest environmental
impact.
• Examples of “low-hanging fruit” are abundant, ranging from eliminating water bottles
in Chapin Grab-n-Go dining hall to changing the default settings on copiers to doublesided printing.
(6) Create parallel sustainable systems.
• We need to provide infrastructure and incentives for purchasers to buy green.
• We need to incorporate green purchasing into other green initiatives, such as the Center
for the Environment and the creation of the Sustainability Coordinator position.
• Green consumer choices are made complete by effective use; the selection of a green
product necessitates the implementation of systems that allow for proper and efficient
use.
6
To this end, I have put together an initial list of resources I found in my research and created a Resource
CD.
15
(7) Create ideological connections and engage in a dialogue.
• Green purchasing is relevant to many academic disciplines. Events focusing on the
effects of our consumption and ways in which we can alter our impact will prove crucial
to a comprehensive green purchasing policy.
(8) Perform a cost-benefit analysis of consumer choices.
• After establishing a baseline of what is being bought, there will be an opportunity to
identify comparable green products, identify costs, and assess their sustainability.
• Ideally, this would take the form of the work-study program outlined in the letter to the
administration.
• These projects would benefit from the inclusion of life cycle assessments that take into
account production, shipping, use, and disposal.
• Once a baseline is established, it will prove crucial to set goals for consumption and
reduction.
(9) Insure and oversee the replacement of products.
• An effective purchasing policy necessitates a means of insuring product quality and
consistency.
• Green products should be tested before making institutional switches. Furthermore, the
administration should provide a system in which the liability of decisions is backed up by
policy.
The above outlined plan of action entails multiple community members and
changes. The following is a summary of requests to the administration:
• Provide funding.
• Investigate EPP potential.
• Provide work-study program.
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CONCLUSION
Effective green purchasing means identifying the impact Smith has on the
environment. Effective green purchasing will equip Smith to be the “private institution
with a public conscious.” Smith is a large consumer of goods. As an elite private
institution, Smith serves as a model to its peer institutions. To be a private college with a
public conscience, we must examine the environmental costs of the production,
transportation, use, and disposal of materials used to operate this campus. It is important
for Smith to incorporate this information into a broader understanding of its global
impact.
By better understanding the ways in which Smith institutionally and economically
affects the larger world, we can better monitor and conserve these consumed resources.
Without a baseline study of resource use as it pertains to purchasing, there are no avenues
through which to reduce use of said resources. Purchasing provides the Smith community
with a forum to reconcile the sometimes competing social, economic, and environmental
tenets of sustainability. Creating a functional green purchasing policy requires
prioritizing and making institutional choices regarding the paradoxes resulting from
merging the three aspects of sustainability.
LITERATURE CITED
Anderson, Robin. “Selling ‘Mother Earth’: Advertising the myth of the natural.”
Environmental Sociology: From Action to Analysis. King, Leslie and Deborah
McCarthy (Eds.) New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. 292- 306.
Environmental Protection Agency. “State and Local Government Pioneers: How State
and Local Governments Are Implementing Environmentally Preferable
Purchasing Practices.” EPA742-R-OO-004. 2000.
Gardyn, Rebecca. “Saving the Earth, One Click at a Time.” American Demographics
(Jan., 2001): 30-33.
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Klingle, Matthew W. “The Environment at Work: Spaces of Consumption in
Environmental History.” History and Theory, Theme Issue 42 (December 2003):
94-110.
Price, Jennifer. Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America. New York:
Basic Books, 1999.
Sack, Robert D. “The Consumer’s World: Place as Context.” Annals of the Association of
American Geographers. 78.4 (Dec., 1988): 642-664.
“Summary of Ideas and Proposals – Support and Promote Environmental Sustainability.”
<Web access: http://www.smith.edu/planning/proposals/sustain.php>
“Strategic Planning – Support and Promote Environmental Sustainability.” Proposal from
Kathleen Zieja, Ann Finley, Roger Guzowski to President Carol Christ. <Web
access: http://www.smith.edu/planning/proposals/pdf/SD6/SD611Sustainability
(dining).pdf>
INTERVIEWS AND MEETING (ARRANGED BY FIRST NAME)
Interview with Ann Finely and Patrick Diggins. 5/8/07.
Meeting with Betty Daignault. 3/30/07.
Meeting with Betty Daignault. 4/23/07.
Interview with Leslie King. 4/19/07.
Meeting with Leslie King and Tom Litwin. 5/8/07.
Interview with Gary Hartwell and Todd Holland. 5/3/07.
Interview with Roger Guzowski, 4/19/07.
Interview with Stanley Rosko. 5/4/07.
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DRAFT
Environmentally Sustainable Purchasing Policy for Smith College
Purpose:
In the founding of the College over 130 years ago, Sophia Smith wrote that the College
would provide “studies as coming times may develop or demand for the education of
women.” That message established a mission for the College to consider not just existing
students and alumnae, but also future generations of students as well.
Smith Colleges recognizes that our institution and students are not separate from the
environment but an active part of it. Further, we recognize that a healthy environment,
and sustained natural resource base is critical to maximize the life and livelihood of not
only our students, and alumnae, but also future generations of students and the ability of
the College to provide the education those future students demand.
The goal of this Environmentally Sustainable Purchasing Policy is to minimize the
adverse environmental impact of the goods and services that we acquire. This policy will
consider all phases of a products life-cycle including raw materials extraction,
production, manufacturing, transportation, operation, maintenance and disposal. To that
end, when economic and performance criteria do not prohibit, Smith purchasers will seek
products that:
• Use the least possible energy throughout their life-cycle
• Use the fewest natural resources throughout their life-cycle
• Generate the least amount of hazardous materials throughout their life-cycle.
Social Sustainability:
The College recognizes that environmental sustainability is integrally connected with
issues of socioeconomic sustainability and social justice. This Sustainable
Environmental Purchasing Policy is designed to work in conjunction with campus
procurement policies that support fair labor, workers rights, and other ethical purchasing
initiatives such as the Vendor Code of Conduct.
(http://www.smith.edu/cccp/conduct.php)
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Guidelines for developing an action plan
Printing and writing paper
• Maximizes post-consumer recycled content.
• Minimizes use of toxic compounds as a bleaching agents or dyes.
• Minimizes coatings, binders, or other materials that inhibit the recyclability of the
product at the end of its useful life.
• Maximizes the content made from rapidly renewable materials (e.g. kenaf)
• Fiber is sourced from sustainably harvested forests or other sustainably grown
sources (e.g. cotton, kenaf, hemp, etc.)
• Manufactured at mills as close to the college as possible to minimize shippingrelated environmental impacts.
• Manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient, resource-efficient,
reduces toxic emissions, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
Other Fiber-based Office Products
• Maximizes post-consumer recycled content.
• Minimizes use of toxic compounds as a bleaching agents or dyes.
• Minimizes coatings, binders, or other materials that inhibit the recyclability of the
product at the end of its useful life.
• Fiber is sourced from sustainably harvested forests or other sustainably grown
sources (e.g. cotton, kenaf, hemp, etc.)
• Manufactured at mills as close to the college as possible to minimize shippingrelated environmental impacts.
• Manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient, resource-efficient,
reduces toxic emissions, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
• Minimizes excess packaging
Other Non-fiber Office Products
• Maximizes post-consumer recycled content.
• Minimizes use of toxic compounds in the manufacture of the product.
• Products are designed for durability and reusability
• Maximizes the use of products that can be readily recycled at the end of the
product’s useful life.
• If product is made from more than one material (e.g. stapler that is mostly metal but
with plastic components), those materials are designed to be easily separated to
ensure the maximum recyclablility of the product.
• Manufactured at mills as close to the college as possible to minimize shippingrelated environmental impacts.
• Manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient, resource-efficient,
reduces toxic emissions, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
• Minimizes excess packaging
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Furniture
• Maximizes post-consumer recycled content.
• Minimizes use of toxic compounds in the manufacture of the product.
• Products are designed for durability and reusability
• Maximizes the use of products that can be readily recycled at the end of the
product’s useful life.
• If product is made from more than one material (e.g. a metal frame desk with a
wooden top, or a metal frame cubicle panel with a foam core and fabric outside),
those materials are designed to be easily separated with basic hand tools to ensure
the maximum recyclablility of the product.
• Materials used in manufacture have low volatile organic compound (VOC) content
• Manufactured at mills as close to the college as possible to minimize shippingrelated environmental impacts.
• Manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient, resource-efficient,
reduces toxic emissions, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
• Minimizes excess packaging
Electronic equipment
• Maximize use of products that meet environmentally-preferable/ “green” computing
specifications, such as the IEEE1680 standards by the Institute of Electrical &
Electronics Engineers, Inc., or equivalent specifications (references:
http://www.epeat.net/Criteria.aspx?show=mandatory, and http://standards.ieee.org/cgibin/status)
• Purchase products that minimize use of toxic compounds in paints, coatings, plastics,
rubbers or seals components (e.g. Short Chain Chlorinated Paraffins [SCCPs]).
• Purchase products that minimize the use of toxic compounds in core-components (e.g.
lead in cathode ray tubes and circuit boards, cadmium in batteries, mercury switches,
asbestos shielding in scientific equipment, etc.)
• All desktop and notebook personal computers shall have a modular design such that
major components and processor can be changed.
• Purchase products in which components that have toxic or special handling
requirements are clearly labeled accordingly and that proper treatment and handling
instructions are specified, especially for new or non-standard substances or
technologies that electronic recycling facilities would not readily be expected to know.
• Manufactured at mills as close to the college as possible to minimize shipping-related
environmental impacts.
• Manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient, resource-efficient,
reduces toxic emissions, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
• Minimizes excess packaging.
• Purchase from vendors that agree to take back packaging materials and components for
which recycling markets are not readily available in close proximity to the College as
part of the purchase price of the equipment.
Vehicles
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• Minimize use of non-renewable fossil fuels during operation via a combination of:
o Utilizing renewable bio-based fuels
o Maximizing fuel efficiency
o Utilizing other renewable energy sources such as solar.
• Minimize generation of greenhouse gasses during operation.
• Minimizes components that contains hazardous materials (e.g. mercury switches)
• Materials used in manufacture have low volatile organic compound (VOC) content
• Manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient, resource-efficient and
reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
• Components maximize the use of recycled content
• Manufactured as locally to the College as possible to minimize shipping-related
environmental impacts.
Dining Services
• Products grown or manufactured as close to the college as possible to minimize
shipping-related environmental impacts to support our local farmers and producers, to
provide improved quality food and to improve food “security”.
• Products grown or manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient,
resource-efficient, reduces toxic emissions, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
• Products shipped in a way that minimizes excess packaging.
• Products purchased in bulk to cut down on packaging waste.
• Foodservice ware and packages that are readily compostable or recyclable at the end
of their useful life
Grounds and Landscaping
• Minimizes use of toxic compounds in fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and
fungicides.
• Minimizes use of toxic compounds in ice melting products.
• Maximize use of compost and other soil amendments to increase plant health.
• Maximize use of mulches.
• Utilize Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques to reduce need for chemical
pesticides.
• Utilize native turf and landscaping plants in landscaping and eliminate invasive
species of crops on campus.
• Utilize durable turf and landscaping plants that are pest resistant and require less
fertilizing.
• Manufactured at mills as close to the college as possible to minimize shipping-related
environmental impacts.
• Manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient, resource-efficient,
reduces toxic emissions, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
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Building Services/Cleaning/Building Maintenance
• Fiber in cleaning products and bath tissues sourced from sustainable harvested forests
or other sustainable grown sources (e.g. cotton, kenaf, hemp, etc.)
• Products manufactured at mills as close to the college as possible to minimize
shipping-related environmental impacts.
• Products maximize post-consumer recycled content.
• Minimizes use of toxic compounds as a bleaching agents or dyes.
• Manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient, resource-efficient,
reduces toxic emissions, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
• Minimizes excess packaging and reuse packaging materials.
• Minimizes use of toxic compounds in the manufacture of the product.
• Products are designed for durability and reusability.
• Cleaning chemicals, equipment, floor sealers and other products are ergonomically
designed and “Green seal” approved and meet or exceed EPA guidelines.
• Maximizes the use of products that can be readily recycled at the end of the product’s
useful life.
• Minimize the use of aerosol products, and minimize (with the goal of eliminating) all
ozone-depleting propellants (e.g. CFCs and HCFCs) in any aerosol products used.
• Maximize use of products that have low volatile organic compound (VOC) content.
Construction & Renovation
• Maximizes post-consumer recycled content.
• Minimizes use of toxic compounds in the manufacture of the product.
• Products are designed for durability and reusability
• Maximizes the use of products that can be readily recycled at the end of the product’s
useful life.
• If product is made from more than one material (e.g. combination of metal and
plastic), those materials are designed to be easily separated with basic hand tools to
ensure the maximum recyclablility of the product.
• Materials used in manufacture have low volatile organic compound (VOC) content
• Manufactured at mills as close to the college as possible to minimize shipping-related
environmental impacts.
• Manufactured in a manner that is water-efficient, fuel-efficient, resource-efficient,
reduces toxic emissions, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
• Minimizes excess packaging
• Maximizes use of products that meet environmentally sound/“green” building
certification standards, such as the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification
or equivalent certification standard.
• Maximize use of products that meet energy efficient certification standards such as
U.S. EPA’s Energy Star program or equivalent standard.
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Charges to campus purchasers
All staff purchasing products on behalf of the College are charged with the following:
• To aggressively seek products which meet the environmental sustainability criteria
outlined in these guidelines.
• When choosing among two or more products that meet the desired performance and
cost criteria, purchasers shall chose the product that more fully meets the
environmental sustainability criteria outlined above.
Charges to campus purchasing department
• To provide training to all those purchasing products on behalf of the College to
familiarize them with the goals of this environmental sustainability purchasing policy.
• To work with campus purchasers to identify any barriers to purchasing products that
meet these sustainable purchasing goals, and to work with vendors and college staff to
overcome those barriers.
• To work with the campus Sustainability Committee and/or applicable coordinators to
develop a matrix to track purchases that meet the goals of this sustainable purchasing
policy.
• To work with applicable campus staff to recognize campus purchasers that maximize
their efforts to acquire products that meet the goals of this policy, and conversely to
identify and recommend actions for those purchasers that flagrantly disregard this
policy.
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Sustainable Office Product Alternatives Study for the Science Center
To locate these products, I used WB-Mason’s website (www.wbmason.com), I
identified recycled products and insured that they were compatible. Betty Daignault
looked up the prices available to her as a purchaser at Smith. As a result, these prices are
confidential and should not be shared without permission from Betty.
Initially, this study was going to include other information, such as where the
product was made, where it was shipped from, and the manufacturer’s employment
practices. However, this information is not readily available on the website. For instance,
while WB-Mason ships from New York, their budget line is often manufactured in China
(Interview with Roger Guzowski, 4/17/07).
The bottom line from my initial investigation is that cost is currently prohibitive
for green office products. I did not investigate the other aspects of sustainability listed
above because it became clear that I would need a quantitative method of comparing
these environmental components. Furthermore, much of this information is most readily
available from the vendor and not the website. Consequently, the results of this study will
not be discussed quantitatively, but rather will be used qualitatively to explore the issues
associated with green purchasing evident in this study. The next page contains a chart
displaying my chart.
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Recycled % refers to the total recycled content. Post-Consumer % refers to the postconsumer content of the total recycled content. Bold indicates current product used.
Alternative products are listed in order of price. Italics represent the products with the
most recycled content. In cases in which there were two products with identical recycled
content, the cheaper of the products is italicized. The symbol, ?, indicates that there is not
information available.
Copier paper (92 brightness)
Quantity
WB Code
WBM21200
5000 sheets
HAM86700
5000 sheets
HEW112100
5000 sheets
Price
$25.89
$40.98
$42.95
Manufacturer
WB-Mason
Hammer-Mill
Hewlard-Packard
Recycled %
0%
30%
30%
Post-Consumer %
0%
30%
30%
Price
$2.19
$19.65
$21.63
$22.51
$25.32
Manufacturer
WB-Mason
Universal
Smead
Pendaflex
Smead
Recycled %
?
30%
100%
100%
10%
Post-Consumer %
?
30%
30%
50%
10%
Quantity
100/box
100/box
100/box
100/box
100/box
100/box
Price
$3.30
$21.80
$25.18
$16.50
$17.57
$18.49
Manufacturer
WB-Mason
Pendaflex
Pendaflex
Universal
Universal
Smead
Recycled %
?
100%
10%
10%
10%
10%
Post-Consumer %
?
50%
10%
10%
10%
10%
Binders, (1" round ring, vinyl)
Quantity
WB Code
UNV31401
12/box
WLJ36814NBL
12/box
WLJ79912
12/box
WLJ36814NB
12/box
ACC39711 (poly)
20/box
ACC38613 (paper)
?
* = coardboard **= vinyl
Price
$6.96
$3.44
$5.29
$3.44
$3.69
$3.98
Manufacturer
Universal
WLJ•
WLJ•
WLJ•
Accohide
Accohide
Price
$0.98
$0.98
$0.79
Manufacturer
Bic
Papermate
WB-Mason
Pendaflex (1" capacity)
Quantity
WB Code
WBM4005
25/box
UNV14115
25/box
SMD65001
25/box
ESSRCY415215SGR*
25/box
SMD64239
25/box
* = info pocket, unnecessary addition
Folders (1/3 cut)
WB Code
WBM3003
ESS74520
ESS421013
UNV12213
UNV16113
SMD10230
Pens med/fine
WB Code
BICGSM11bk
PAP33311
SBC47410
Quantity
12/box
12/box
12/box
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Recycled % Post-Consumer %
0%
0%
?
?
100%*, 50%** 75% *, 50% **
?
?
?
?
10%
30%
Recycled %
0%
0%
0%
Post-Consumer %
0%
0%
0%
**Soy inkdoes not work for printers or ballpoint pens
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