Module 2: Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP)
- Overview
- Reasons for Changing to EPP
- Getting Started
- Options for Action
- Advancing your program
- Resources
Overview: Why Integrate Environmental Factors into Purchasing?
The United States consumes about 25 percent of the world’s resources, but has 5 percent of the world’s population! According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 1999 Statistical Abstract of the United States, personal-consumption expenditures reached over $5 trillion in 1997. That’s over $18,000 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S.
These numbers become even weightier when you consider the fact that every individual purchase we make impacts the environment, either by our consumption of raw materials or discard of waste, or both. From buying groceries to buying homes, each purchasing decision we make is an environmental decision.
The U.S. economy is driven by commerce
The bedrock of commerce is the transaction, which signifies an agreement between two parties to exchange one thing for another. Every` transaction represents an explicit agreement to accept a product and service offered to meet a specific need. EPP expands the transaction discussion beyond product or service function to the implicit agreement to accept the impact of the product or service on the environment during manufacturing, use, and ultimate disposal.
Purchasing Decisions = Economic Decisions + Environmental Decisions
Environmentally preferable purchasing—what it’s all about
EPP includes environmental considerations with the price and performance criteria businesses use to make purchasing (transaction) decisions. EPP is an added component of supply-chain management. It attempts to identify and reduce environmental impact and to maximize resource efficiency.
Also referred to as Environmental Purchasing, Affirmative Procurement, Green Procurement, and Green Purchasing, EPP is a process that deals with buying products or services that will reduce impact on human health and the environment. Factors considered when determining if products or services are environmentally preferable may include:
- How raw materials are acquired
- The production and manufacturing methods
- Product packaging
- The means of distribution
- The ability for reuse when the product is obsolete or damaged
- Operation and maintenance requirements
- A final disposal option when the item is no longer serviceable
Environmentally Preferred Purchasing has not been universally defined. This lack of universal definition creates one obstacle to implementation, but many businesses have chosen to move forward in demonstrating their commitment and ability to make purchases that reduce their impact on the environment. If you want to move forward immediately here are ten simple ways in which you can begin demonstrating your commitment to environmentally sound purchases.
The following concepts are common to all of these green-purchasing efforts:
Pollution Prevention
- Avoiding the creation of wastes from the start of a process, through the practices of source reduction and waste reduction.
- Reducing or eliminating toxicity, air emissions, and water emissions.
- Preventing transfer of pollution from one environmental medium (air, water, or land) to another.
Life-Cycle Perspective
- Looking at costs beyond the purchase price.
- Considering costs and environmental impacts over the lifetime of a product or service (raw-material extraction, manufacturing, packaging, transport, energy consumption, maintenance, disposal).
Resource Efficiency
- Giving preference to reusable content, and recycled materials over virgin materials, as well as to conserving water, energy and other resources in the manufacturing process.