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Finding Green Products and Services
The Canadian Federal Government has designed a website called "How to Buy Green" http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/sustain/EnvironMan/system/greenop/procure/how2buy-en.asp to help government people with purchasing authority build environmental thinking into their work. This site provides a good guide for anyone who is thinking of moving towards a more green way of choosing what his or her company or institution buys. It offers websites and links to companies that have products that are certified under environmental standards programs, or made specifically to meet environmental guidelines. What Students and Citizens can Do
Another idea is to look at some basic products purchased by your school or company, and compare those brands to "green" brands. What kinds of copiers, paper, cleaning products, light bulbs, fuels, lumber do they buy? Have they asked for prices from companies that work to offer products or services with environmental qualities? How much do green products cost in comparison with products that do not meet environmental criteria? Why are environmentally-friendly products often more expensive than mainstream brands? What are the "tradeoffs" when making environmental decisions (quality, quantity, low cost versus environmental responsibility)? There can be some difficult choices involved. What are the health or biodiversity considerations of buying products whose production, use or disposal is polluting? Doing some research into green products to see what's available is another interesting project. (Type "green products" or "green procurement" into Google or your favourite web browser and see what you can find out. There are lots of new ideas in the green products and services area. They're worth knowing about. Interface Flooring Systems: Rethinking the Way Companies Work"Doing well by doing good." - Interface Chairman Ray Anderson
The company's vision is exciting and ambitious:
Sustainability means the ability to preserve what is needed to keep goingserve, but actively restore the environment as part of doing business. This philosophy reflects the idea of a "restorative economy" proposed in a book by entrepreneur and ecologist Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce. To Interface sustainability is not only a goal, but a process. Their definition:
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The program is based on the "Power of One Principle:" "What can we do individually on a voluntary basis to make a big difference -- and how can it be communicated to others and duplicated throughout Canada?" |
Interface Flooring Systems has developed and adopted their own
company "Climate Change Pledge." The program is based
on the "Power of One Principle" that asks the question: "What
can we each do on a voluntary basis to make a big difference? And
how can it be communicated to others and duplicated throughout
Canada?
The company involves all its employees in the Pledge process, beginning with a training video that features experts presenting the facts about climate change and its potential impacts. After training, employees are encouraged to participate in the Pledge, program which consists of four parts:
Suggested activities are using alternative transportation, attentive consumption, home energy savings, and careful gas use.
All
the employees who participate in the Climate Change Pledge process
receive a scorecard, with estimated greenhouse gas emission conversions
for every action from the plan. They also get a "Climate Change
Action Volunteer" t-shirt.
For more details and suggested actions from the Climate Change Pledge, please visit the Interface website: http://www.interfacesustainability.com/canclim.html
Green Procurement
GIPPER Guide to Green Procurement
www.designinggreen.com/main/gipper/index.htm
Green Purchasing Links
www.summitconnects.com/Online_Procurement_Links/Green_Purchasing.htm
Buy Green - Recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation
and pollution prevention are all objectives of environmentally
responsible procurement. This site provides information on "green" products
and services and tips on how you can set up a green procurement
program.
www.buygreen.com
Environment Canada's Green Lane - Information on greener
procurement policy and practice.
www.ec.gc.ca/eog-oeg/greener_procurement/Greener_Procurement.htm
Re-Thinking the Ways Companies Work
Interface Sustainability
www.interfacesustainability.com/whatis.html
The Natural Step An organization dedicated to helping businesses
become more green.
www.naturalstep.org
The Ecology of Commerce An important book on the principles
of how business can move towards becoming more environmentally
sustainable.
www.ecobooks.com/ecommerc.htm
Important Books
ACTIVITY 1
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Green
Purchasing
Individual
shopping choices send important messages to companies about what
the public prefers (see Green Shopping). Imagine, therefore, the
messages that would be sent to manufacturers if large companies,
institutions, government agencies, industries or school boards told
them the supplies that they order need to pass an environmental
checklist. Customers who buy hundreds or thousands of items at
a time are very important to manufacturers. So when big buyers
tell their suppliers that the environment matters, they are likely
to pay attention!
Buying large quantities of supplies for institutions and
taking environmental considerations into consideration when choosing
suppliers is called "green purchasing." Buying green
means selecting products that reduce environmental impacts. Another
word for purchasing on a big scale is procurement.
What are some of the questions that a green purchaser would ask
her or his supplier? (Remember, every phase of a product's life
has some effect on the environment.) Here are some important ones:
Does
this cleaning product have a minimum of environmental effects?
Does
the company that makes this product (or provides this service)
have an environmental polic?
Once a checklist
is made up deciding what's important about products or services
chosen the next important consideration is: Does our purchasing
officer have good sources for finding environmentally preferable
products if current suppliers can't provide?
Whether
you're a student or a citizen, you can have an influence on green
purchasing. A simple way to start is to ask if your school, school
board, institution or company does green purchasing, or green procurement.
Just letting people in the administration know you think this matters
is an important first step. 
Interface Flooring Systems Canada (IFS) in Belleville, Ontario
is a subsidiary of a US company that makes "carpet tiles" -
squares of carpeting to cover large areas in facilities such as
hotels and convention centres. As a company, Interface is unique
in the degree of its commitment to ecological sustainability in
business. They have developed a model for the company they wish
to become. They call it their model "of the sustainable enterprise
of the next industrial revolution." Every change in company
practice that reduces emissions, solid waste, distance to markets is
a contribution to reducing the gases that contribute to climate
change.
How to
Become a Sustainable Company
Becoming
sustainable requires that those who undertake it acquire an understanding
of how the Earth works. Equally importantly, they must understand
how human activities affect nature's processes. According to Interface,
this means examining everything we do, everything we take, everything
we make, everything we waste. It means asking how our actions will
affect our children and our grandchildren. It then means making
sound decisions based on what we find through this kind of questioning. 
