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See the Greatest Hits page for a collection of publications on green purchasing, available on CDROM

Purchasing for Cleaner Production

What goes in, goes out - sometimes as waste and pollution.  To reduce inputs, the purchasing or procurement functions need to participate.  There are many opportunities to reduce waste by implementing green purchasing.  For example, many companies have greatly reduced or even eliminated toxic waste by changing the kinds of chemicals they purchase.

Green purchasing is strongly related to strategic supply chain management.  The traditional form of purchasing, which tends to create adversarial relationships between sellers and buyers, is being replaced in many companies with tight and productive relationships between suppliers and customers.  Green purchasing can and should take place with a framework of supply chain management.  Major sites with good information on supply chain management include Supply Chain Today, Logistics/Supply Chain, and Supply Chain Toolbox.

• The National Association of Purchasing Management is increasingly focused on green purchasing and environmental management of suppliers. It has numerous on-line reports and is a basic resource for learning about supply chain management.
  
  
• The US EPA Environmentally Preferable Purchasing project is probably the leading international site for tools and policy related to purchasing.  It has a big collection of tools and reports, policy analysis and an active email discussion group.
  
  
• ICLEI's European Eco-Procurement Initiative is the European equivalent of the US EPA site, with guides, directories, news and policy.
  
  
• Buy Green has guides, links, information about eco-labeling programs and product certifications, and current news.
  
  
• The Green Guide to Reducing Office Waste has good tools for reducing office purchases.
  
  
• The Resource Conservation Alliance has a good list of links to USA federal, state and local EPP programs.
  
  
• New Paths to Business Value: Strategic Sourcing--Environment, Health, and Safety is an important guidance document, produced by a group of major corporations, designed to address the business value of managing Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) in Procurement.
  
  
• This interesting survey describes the Views of Fortune 500 Companies on ISO 14001 and Supplier Management.
  
  
• See the Design page for links to sellers of environmentally improved products and services.