Go Green! Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! Compost!

Those are definitely the buzzwords of the decade.

All around us organizations are making sustainability a key priority in their operations, and sustainability is a cornerstone of the work that MASCO does throughout the LMA. Late last fall MASCO hosted a panel on the opportunities and challenges of Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP).

“The purpose of the forum was to help MASCO members think about which sustainable products and services we should focus on, how to implement sustainable purchasing policies and identify greener products, all while addressing our need for a healthy bottom line,” said Jan Henderson, a senior planner at MASCO and forum organizer.

Questions addressed to the expert panel included: “How do I get started? How can I secure senior management buy-in? Isn’t greener procurement going to cost my organization more money? What’s my value add?”

“EPP has risen to become a strategic imperative for our members,” explained Susan Chase, MASCO’s director of collaborative services and forum organizer. “Chief Procurement Officers play a crucial role in updating purchasing criteria aimed at hitting specific sustainability targets. Drivers include regulatory compliance, cost reduction, energy efficiency, and ultimately a more streamlined supply chain. EPP can also improve worker health and safety, create a competitive advantage and demonstrate an organization’s environmental awareness – which are all key messages when connecting with consumers,” she added.

“With 18% of the GDP, hospitals are realizing they have the potential to impact supply chain and public health through healthier purchasing practices,” said panel member Janet Howard of Practice GreenHealth, a non-profit that helps health care organizations increase their efficiencies and environmental stewardship. “Hospitals are sending a clear message that they want healthier food, safer chemicals, energy and water efficient equipment and business partners that are in alignment with their commitment to healthier environments for staff, patients and the communities they serve.”

The forum resulted in the following five key lessons for getting EPP launched in your organization:
• Commitment at all levels of the institution is important; leadership and direction from the top is critical to success.  Build Green Teams that represent personnel from all levels of the organization.
• Prioritize specific areas of spend using Life Cycle Assessment. The production, use and disposal of our purchases all have environmental and human health impacts.
• Leverage what has been done and use 3rd party certifications to guide and verify vendor claims. It’s still not always easy to identify environmentally preferable products, because choosing the best product depends on what attributes and/or impacts are most important to the respective buyer.
• Savings are achievable, just perhaps not on every contract. Look strategically and share ‘wins’ with others to be a leader in the industry.
• This is an evolutionary change, and won’t happen overnight. Start with small wins, then build on them.

“EPP at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is truly an evolution and not a revolution. We continuously look for ways to expand EPP. The biggest challenge is our vendors, many of whom practice EPP internally but have not developed formal programs for their customers,” said Steve Cashton, director of purchasing and contracting for BIDMC and panelist.

Special thanks to Kathy Peroni-Callahan and her team from Simmons College for donating their time and the space for the event. Personnel from 23 LMA organizations were represented in the audience, which also included our neighbors from Northeastern, UMASS, Berklee School of Music and Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital. Seventy-five percent of the attendees represented procurement departments.

The expert panel was comprised of both LMA procurement experts and industry representatives:
Dr. Greg Norris, Harvard School of Public Health
Janet Brown, Practice GreenHealth,
Jennifer Waddell, Novation LLC,
Andrew Madden, Brigham and Women’s Hospital 
James McQuaide, Harvard University
Steve Cashton, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

For more information on EPP please contact Jan Henderson at jhenderson@masco.harvard.edu or Susan Chase at schase@masco.harvard.edu and see additional resources at the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council: www.purchasingcouncil.org.