EDO-2024-000025

Utah Department of Environmental Quality
DEQ Home Page: http://www.deq.utah.gov
For information contact: Business Assistance
Office: 801-536-4480 Toll-free: 1800-458-0145
10 Key Steps to Adopting
An
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program

Your business has the power to make a positive impact on the environment. By
using your buying power, your business can influence the market towards
products that are less harmful to the environment. Businesses that adopt
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) programs consider the impacts a
product or service has on the environment, in addition to price, performance, and
availability, compared with competing products or services. Many EPP products
work as well or better than traditional products and can even save you money.
By following the next ten steps, your business can begin implementing an EPP
program:
Step 1: Developing a Strategy for Winning Senior Leadership
Support

To begin an EPP program, you should have the support of the business owner or
upper management. With this commitment, you are reassuring employees that
your EPP program is supported at the highest level of your company.

Your company can benefit from an EPP program in the following ways:

 Set your company and its products or services apart from competitors;
 Enhance your image in the community;
 Improve worker safety by eliminating exposure to toxic cleaners,
solvents, and building products;
 Reduce overhead, waste disposal, and environmental liability costs by
selecting less hazardous materials; and
 Increase availability of EPP in the marketplace

EPP can be as simple as choosing to use a less toxic cleaner. Or EPP can be
as complex as evaluating the environmental impact of one type of carpet to
another product throughout the product’s life cycle from raw material selection,
manufacture, packaging and distribution, use, and disposal. Many of the
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resources listed in this guide include life cycle assessments for popular products
so you have the information you need for choosing more environmentally
preferable products.

Step 2: Setting up an Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Team

EPP programs require coordination between users and waste managers, in
addition to purchasers. A representative from the purchasing staff can help
shape a workable framework. Users are knowledgeable about the performance
attributes. And waste managers can provide valuable information about what
products are used the most, what products create a waste issue since they don’t
get used up, and disposal costs. Consider using an existing Green Team or
other environmental team to function as an EPP Team. Include regional
representatives, if your company is large, as a point-of-contact for all employees
in that region. The leader of the team should be directly responsible for
implementing the EPP program and have an interest in the mission of the
program.
Step 3: Evaluate Current Products and Practices

Conduct an audit of the products, equipment, and practices in your business to
evaluate them from an environmental and human health standpoint. Consider
conducting the audits over a period of time, if your business is large. Identify
which products contain hazardous substances and can be replaced by more
environmentally-friendly alternatives. Examine processes and procedures and
determine where improvements can be made. Always remember to consult with
users, since they may have problems with a product and would welcome a
change to an EPP product. The users will be more supportive of an EPP
program if an existing problem is solved by using an EPP product.

EPA’s Environmentally Preferable Purchasing web page provides valuable
tools and case studies for popular environmentally preferable products and
services, including environmental attributes to look for and procurement
guidance. EPP information is provided for the following product categories:
Buildings and Construction, Carpets, Cleaning, Electronics, Fleets, Food
Services, Landscaping, Meetings and Conferences, Office Supplies, and Paper.

Center for a New American Dream features best practices for implementing an
EPP program including model policies and specifications for RFPs, in addition to
other EPP tools.

Clean Production Action’s web page for manufacturers provides strategic
solutions for green chemicals, sustainable materials, and environmentally
preferable products. The web page includes the “Green Screen” benchmarking
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tool that assesses how hazardous a chemical is and then provides less
hazardous options.

EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) is a
stakeholder-developed environmental performance standard that enables
purchasers to evaluate and select electronic products (currently laptops,
desktops, and workstations and monitors with printers and TVs in development)
according to 51 lifestyle environmental criteria. EPEAT was developed with
support from EPA and is required for all US government purchases.

Green Seal is an independent, non-profit organization that provides science-
based environmental certification standards to help manufacturers, purchasers,
and end users make environmentally-responsible purchasing and manufacturing
choices.

INFORM Strategies for a Better Environment offers a “Cleaning for Health”
manual that provides information on a new generation of cleaning products and
practices that are cost competitive and meet performance needs but contain less
toxic substances than traditional cleaners.

Practice Greenhealth EPP Program is designed for healthcare providers but
provides RFP language for a wide variety of products and services, general
guidance for approaching EPP projects, and a list of web resources for finding
products that you may be purchasing without a formal RFP.

Responsible Purchasing Network is a membership program but provides an
array of free resources as well. The network offers detailed guidance on EPP
efforts in multiple product and service areas, model RFP language, case studies,
and, for members, a newsletter and direct assistance.

StopWaste website features various fact sheets and Guidelines for Buying
Environmentally Preferable Products, a guide, that lists various types of products
(e.g. paper office supplies, office furnishings, janitorial cleaning products, etc.);
the environmental attribute to consider when purchasing; the source of the
associated “green” standard or guideline on which the environmental attribute is
based; and notes or links for further information about that specific type of
product.
Step 4: Establishing a Working Relationship with Vendors

Purchasing departments are the central control point for nearly every product or
service that is purchased by a business. This is where the money is transferred
from a business to a vendor, contracts are developed, and relationships with
vendors are developed. Because purchasing is where money changes hands, it
can offer the greatest leverage with vendors to ensure that products are
purchased that are less damaging to the environment and human health than
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competing products. Ask for product samples and equipment demonstrations.
Coordinate training sessions for new products, procedures, and equipment.
Demand products with less packaging and packaging that can be recycled. To
assess the impacts of your purchasing changes, require reporting and analysis
from vendors, such as the number of ‘greener’ products purchased yearly,
amount of toxic materials avoided, and energy saved or other metrics.
Step 5: Identifying Opportunities for Improvement, Prioritizing Efforts
and Setting Goals

Start with a small, manageable pilot project. It is easy to switch to numerous
environmentally preferable products all at once since there are a lot of great
products out there. But, several small successful pilot projects will help you gain
additional support and credibility. Then you can expand your program little by
little over a period of time, such as three to five years or even longer depending
on resources and other company goals.

Try to set goals that are specific, measurable, and can be completed in a specific
time period. For example:

 Increase purchase of cleaning products, paints, and other chemicals that
are less toxic than competing products by 25% in the next contract.
 Increase purchase of products that use less packaging by 20% in 12
months.
 Choose only Energy Star certified or EPEAT registered products when
replacing electronic equipment or appliances.
 Increase purchase of recycled content products or reusable products by
25% by the next fiscal year. By purchasing recycled content products, you
are helping to “close the loop” by providing markets for recovered
materials.
 Increase purchase of products with a long life span, such as rechargeable
batteries by 25% in 12 months.
Step 6: Developing policies and procedures

To make sure that you have the support that you need for your EPP program,
request a policy statement or job description revisions from top management.
Using the EPP resources included in this guide, work with the purchasing
department to develop RFP language as needed.

If an EPP product requires a change in practice (using less solvent) or a
procedure (using a less hazardous cleaner), then procedures or policies may
need to be developed to educate employees about the change. Outline in writing
the person who is responsible for ensuring that policies or procedures are
followed and a timeline.
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Step 7: Determining a Strategy for Evaluating EPP Products

It’s important to monitor and evaluate your EPP projects to ensure continued
success. Develop an audit process to monitor the progress of the pilot study or
other EPP project. Set up a mechanism for receiving feedback from employees
and product users. Review and evaluate the feedback and use it to improve your
current policies and procedures or use the feedback in future projects. Of
course, the complexity and detail of this reporting will depend on how significant
a change you are making – switching a single product may not require more than
a short email survey of users. If a product, practice, or procedure did not work,
then make necessary improvements or move forward to another project. In order
to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of an EPP program, you should track any
income generated by the program as well as your savings in disposal costs,
operating expenses, and purchasing expenditures.
Step 8: Initiating an Education & Awareness Effort

Determine your educational needs for implementing an EPP program. At a
minimum, your education program should include information about the goals of
the EPP program, how your business, employees, and the environment benefit
from using EPP products, and how new products or practices will be evaluated.
Also provide information on how employees will be trained to use the new
product or practice and the type of mechanisms that will be used for obtaining
and evaluating feedback from employees and product users. The education
program should be available to existing as well as new employees. Consider a
reward, such as movie tickets, or other recognition, such as a highlight in the
company newsletter, for employees that go out of their way to educate
themselves or others about a new product or practice.
Step 9: Launching Your Program

Post notices in key areas of your business to educate staff on the new
environmentally preferable products that are being used within your business.
Provide information on any new procedures or policies being adopted during the
switch to EPP products. Use this opportunity to again include information on
how your business, employees, and the environment benefit from using EPP
products, and how employees and customers can provide feedback about the
specific product or practice. Include contact information for your EPP team
members.

Continue meeting with the EPP Team to review ongoing efforts, make
adjustments as needed, and collaborate on new initiatives.
Step 10: Celebrating Your Successes

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Provide regular updates to employees and management about your EPP
program in newsletters (preferably on-line) and meetings, using the data from
your tracking system. Consider equating your company’s successes in terms of
the number of trees spared, energy and water saved, toxic materials eliminated,
or the amount of waste diverted from the landfill by using products that use less
packaging. Two good resources to use for environmental “factoids” are:
http://www.nerc.org/documents/environmental_benefits_calculator.html and
www.environmentaldefense.org/papercalculator/

Give rewards and recognition to EPP Team members and key members of your company
when you celebrate your successes. Remember, your EPP program goals and successes
can be an effective marketing opportunity.