Purchasing Approach

The most effective way to purchase more environmental products is to 1) make environmentally preferable purchasing an integral part of your site's Environmental Management System and 2) specify environmental products in your service and product contracts as well as purchasing agreements.

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing in Environmental Management Systems

How can you include environmentally preferable purchasing in your site's Environmental Management System?

• Set a goal to include the purchase of environmentally preferable products in your site's Environmental Management System and transition to at least one such product a year



• Survey your organization's purchasing and resulting waste



• Recognize that products purchased today often become tomorrow's environmental management problems



• Identify mechanisms for buying environmental products
  o Credit card purchases - Statements of work
  o Service contracts - Requests for proposal
  o Electronic catalogs



• Conduct pilot projects



• Evaluate progress and renew efforts according to results



• Communicate benefits

For further information on including environmentally preferable purchasing in your site's Environmental Management System, see the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Integrating Green Purchasing into Your Environmental Management System and Appendix F ("Strategic Plan and Guidance for Preferred Procurement") of the U.S. Department of Energy's Implementation Guide for Integrating Pollution Prevention into Environmental Management Systems.