Climate Action 2011-2012

Green Tech Hardware
Steps to Sustainability
Supplier environmental
certification and rating:
the EPEAT experience
By Sarah O’Brien, EPEAT Outreach Director and
Jeff Omelchuck, Director and EPEAT Executive Director
of the Green Electronics Council (GEC)
Organisations undertaking sustainability initiatives are
often challenged to prioritise environmental projects
in competition with those considered more central. In
today’s economic climate, even the most environmentally
dedicated manager may think twice before allocating staff
and funding resources to what could be misconstrued as
simply a ‘feel-good’ programme. Using environmental
tools to address identified issues with core business
activities can overturn the too-common perception that
business value must be sacrificed for environmental
benefit. If an environmentally positive strategy can
improve operational efficiency, reduce cost overruns,
minimise regulatory compliance costs, or mitigate
occupational safety issues and absenteeism, the fact
that it also helps the environment will be a welcome
additional feature, rather than cause for concern.
Most organisations can effectively leverage existing
purchasing activities for environmental benefit. Whatever
the economic climate, organisations must continue to
purchase goods and services to operate. Many governments
spend nearly half their budget on purchasing, and in many
emerging markets government procurement constitutes
Environmental certification programmes like EPEAT can help to make electronic products sustainable.
a very large segment of GDP – for example, 46 per cent
in Brazil, 52 per cent in Ghana, and 43 per cent in India.
In governments like these and in large global enterprises,
procurement management can be an essential tool to create
operational efficiencies and environmental benefit.
To give a very simple example of this dual benefit:
requiring vendors to take back and document recycling
or reuse of packaging can help large facilities reduce the
complexity and cost of handling and storing enormous
volumes of packing waste, and eliminate the cost of recycling
or disposing of that waste in the end. Compelling suppliers
to deal with waste may also push efficiencies back up the
supply chain and encourage adoption of minimal, recyclable
or re-usable packaging, with a broad environmental benefit.
Procurement management can
be an essential tool to create
operational efficiencies and
environmental benefit.
However, asking procurement staff to identify
environmentally preferable product and service options does
not necessarily serve the purpose of increasing organisational
efficiencies. Without significant amounts of training
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