So Montana is doing pretty well, said Scot Case, a Pennsylvania-based consultant on “green purchasing,” but the state could still do better.
Case was in Helena on Thursday to train the procurement officers of all state agencies, along with some federal, local and private procurement officers, on how to think green when placing the enormous orders typical of government.
Some states, such as New York, have mandates that equipment, supplies and services purchased by the state must take into account the environmental and social cost of what the state buys, Case said.
Montana doesn't do that, said Sheryl Olson, deputy director of the Department of Administration, but for years, managers have challenged workers to buy energy-efficient equipment and other durable goods. This spring, the state challenged its workers to buy more recycled and green office products.
The effort is part of Gov. Brian Schweitzer's 20x10 Energy Initiative to reduce energy use by 20 percent in executive branch agency facilities by 2010.
Already, Olson said,72 percent of all the paper bought by the state is recycled. State documents are printed with toxin-free inks.
Such efforts don't cost the state any more money, said Olson and other state procurement specialists. The recycled pens, for example, cost the same as regular pens, said Sandra Boggs, of the Air, Energy and Pollution Prevention Bureau at DEQ.
And the toxin-free computers are actually cheaper than normal computers, said Brad Sanders, who heads up computer buying for the Department of Administration, because Montana is one of 38 other states that buy the computers in enormous quantities from suppliers.
Case said it's no accident that prices of recycled and lower-impact products are coming down. State procurement is a big part of the explanation. Government buys such enormous volumes of paper, pens, ink and other office products that it drives down the price.
“We're the consumer,” he told the procurement buyers. “We're always right.”
He compared the combined purchasing power of government as equivalent to the economic might of the Hudson Bay Co., the Canadian corporation that began as fur-trading business along the U.S.-Canadian border and grew into a retail empire.
Even something as small as buying recycled printer paper makes a difference, Case said. Recycled paper uses 95 percent less energy than making paper out of virgin trees.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)