Green Purchasing—Getting Started

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing for Hospitals

In this section

• Setting EPP Goals for your Hospital or Health System
• Exploring EPP Approaches
• Vendors as a Resource
• Tracking Systems
• Publicity and Celebrating Success
• Communication and Training

Setting EPP Goals for your Hospital or Health System

For step by step implementation guide to EPP, see H2E’s Ten Step Guide to EPP

• Establish an EPP Team or task an existing committee with this work.
• Prioritize EPP goals that address existing problems or issues in your facility.
• For your first projects, target items with easily accessible model specifications and readily available alternative products (check H2E’s Product-Specific Guidance pages), or stick with ‘green products’ already available on your GPO contracts.
• Set environmentally preferable purchasing goals that are specific, measurable, and to be completed in a set time period, such as:
  • Increase purchase of recyclables or reusables 30% by the next fiscal year.
  • Reduce total solid waste 15% through purchasing restrictions on packaging in 12 months.
  • Reduce water use 5% every year for 3 years through installation of water saving devices and fixtures.
  • Reduce purchase of products that require hazardous waste handling by 10% in the next year.
  • Eliminate purchase of two categories of mercury-containing products this year

Exploring EPP Approaches

Working with a GPO. Many hospitals purchase almost entirely through a Group Purchasing Organization. Hospitals and health systems can make use of the EPP programs that many GPOs have established, exert pressure on their GPOs to implement EPP programs if they have not done so already, and urge them to expand the categories in which they offer ‘green’ products. To assist this effort, facility staff may wish to serve on GPO product review committees. More

Purchasing third party verified products. Many products can demonstrate that they have qualified for environmental certification or labeling, or have met the criteria for inclusion in such programs as Energy Star. As a starting point for environmentally preferable purchasing, you can specify that your organization will prefer such products in any category where they are available. You will still need to do due diligence on the certifying or labeling organizations to ensure their criteria are sufficiently rigorous and their review process sufficiently detailed to ensure environmental improvement. See Certification/Labeling.

Creating Lists of Prohibited Products/Chemicals to Avoid. By identifying specific chemicals which you wish to exclude from your purchasing (as product ingredients or on their own), you can establish a blanket disclosure/exclusion policy for all purchases. Of course, the criteria for any such list must be public, defensible and clear. For this reason you may wish to use publicly available lists that have been vetted by government or other expert panels. More

Creating a Preferred Vendor Program. Such a program identifies a subset of preferred vendors based on their company’s environmental performance and the environmental benefits of their products, and encourages (or requires) individual buyers to source products from those vendors. Such a program may still limit products that may be purchased from a listed vendor, excluding any that do not meet the EPP criteria you have established. Any list of preferred vendors should have clear and public selection criteria so as not to raise unfair trade or liability issues. More

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Vendors as a Resource

Product vendors should be able to demonstrate (with lab test reports or other objective measures) that their product does not contain any substances you have identified as undesirable. They should be able to verify any claims that the product(s) does contain materials that are recycled, biobased, low-toxicity or have other characteristics you have identified as desirable. Vendors should also be able to provide you with detailed information on:

• wastes avoided, energy saved, water use reduction, trees preserved, and other environmental benefits
• demonstration of low-offgassing potential, low-VOC content and other Indoor Air Quality measures
• any required personal protective equipment
• any special handling/disposal requirements
• any regulatory requirements that apply to shipping, use and end of life disposal
• end of life disposition options including any take-back, re-manufacturing or recycling options the vendor provides or can identify
• changes in operations necessary to use the product and training options they provide

Service providers should be able to document and quantify any waste reduction, mercury elimination, toxics reduction, or resource consumption reduction connected with their services. They should also be able to provide you with data tracking for any wastes – asset disposition information for any used or discarded equipment, donation totals for any used equipment donations, and so forth. They should be able to demonstrate that they incinerate only those wastes required by law. And they should provide you with references in your area that you can contact to discuss their services and any resultant savings.

As with any other characteristic specified in contract, the purchaser should look for objective validation regarding the accuracy of vendor claims.

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Tracking and Assessment

Tracking and assessment measures can assist you in identifying and financially justifying environmentally preferable purchasing, make it easier to measure success in meeting goals. Both of these can help you make the case for integrating environmentally preferable purchasing into every day decisions.

What to Track The more information you can obtain, the better. Basic reporting should include information on:

Environmental benefit: toxic materials avoided, energy or water saved, solid waste avoided, manufacturing releases avoided, etc.

Cost savings: avoided hazardous waste disposal costs, avoided PPE costs, avoided special handling training costs, avoided purchasing costs for long-life or reusable products, etc.

Vendor Reporting Require yearly or quarterly reports from vendors on environmentally preferable products purchased. Vendors often have tracking systems in place which can be adjusted to track environmentally preferable products sales. This can reduce your work significantly, since this information is essential to demonstrate the benefits of your purchasing changes, and you may not have the time to research it. Ask vendors to provide detailed information on environmental benefits related to their products. At best, s/he should provide you with the aggregate environmental benefits figures for each report period. (Though you can calculate these yourself if provided with adequate basic information, you may have many products to track, so require calculation of benefits by the vendor wherever you can). If you are purchasing through a GPO, request the same information.

In House Tracking Purchasers can use simple notes or codes on their ledgers or in computer purchasing systems to start internal tracking of environmentally preferable purchases. (Hg for mercury, RY for recycled content, RC for recyclable, and so forth.) If you have figures on environmental benefit per unit of product, you can use this minimal tracking to simply count up products purchased and then multiply your environmental benefit figures by that number. It’s not rocket science, but it will allow you to demonstrate the significance of the environmental improvements brought about by your purchasing efforts.

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Publicity and Celebrating Success

Environmentally preferable purchasing programs need widespread support to maintain continual enthusiasm and participation. The main reason to track your program’s environmental benefits is to be able to communicate them to your colleagues, supervisors, and the community at large! Use data provided by vendors, government and researchers to create easily interpreted environmental indicators for internal EPP promotion and for external publicity:

• "Recycled paper purchases at X Hospital saved 455 trees and 8000 gallons of water this year."
• "Replacement of histology reagent in our lab prevented $3500 of hazardous waste disposal costs this quarter."
• “Replacement and recycling of mercury sphygmomanometers eliminated XX pounds of mercury from our facility this year.”
• Report on the total percentage of all purchased items having recycled content.

Label environmentally preferable products to educate staff and patients.

• “This memo/menu/newsletter printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper.”
• “Mercury-free sphygmomanometer.”

Develop a well-publicized awards program for employees who contribute successful ideas for environmentally preferable purchasing projects. Make sure you also reward employees who contribute to continuous improvement or have solutions to problems they have pointed out, (but wait until the review period for pilots to ensure that the awarded idea actually works!).

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Communication and Training

The facilities department of one hospital decided to replace all its mercury sphygmomano- meters with aneroid equipment. After the old equipment was removed and the new sphygs installed, the nursing department decided it didn’t like the new products and ordered mercury sphygmomanometers through the purchasing department. The facilities department found this out a week later during routine work on the floor when it noticed workers installing new equipment.

You want to avoid any similar disasters! Make sure your end users understand that a purchasing change is planned, why it is needed, and what if any changes they will need to make to use the new product. Hold EPP trainings for staff to inform them about the program and its benefits. Include training on new equipment or products in any significant product replacement efforts. Build EPP training into your employee orientation programs. If employees understand why an EPP program is in place, they will be more likely to comply.

Be sure to educate supervisory staff who could undermine your program by allowing end users to purchase environmentally harmful products about the reasons you have instituted the change, and ask for their help. Make the change an opportunity for collaborative work, not an imposition from above.

Establish a formal or informal audit procedure to regularly review compliance with environmental purchasing policies, and designate a staff member in each department to be responsible for this reporting. If you don’t know people are purchasing supplies off contract or in conflict with your goals, you can’t address their needs and gain compliance.

Product-Specific Guidance

Please see Product Specific Guidance.

If you have policies, procedures or other useful information to add to this work in progress, please submit it to H2E at H2E@H2E-online.org or call 800-727-4179 for more information.