In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

Buying Green Becomes Top Priority

In Business, May-June, 2005, Vol. 27, No. 3, p. 18

Using consistent strategy and philosophy, a supply manager achieves amazing results to procure ecofriendly products for his purchasing dollars.

Cindy Rovins

OR KEVIN LYONS, buying green isn't a concept that you slam down people's throats; nor is it a problem to solve by throwing money at it. It's more like a chess match, where each move is a well-thought out strategy - only in this game, everyone wins.
Lyons is the Associate Director for Supply Chain Environmental Management and Policy at the Rutgers University' EcoComplex (see Nov./Dec. 2004 In Business). His diverse projects involve schools, municipalities, businesses - a growing base of institutions that incorporate green purchasing. In 1988, when Rutgers University hired him as a conventional Supply Chain Manager based on his credentials working with the military and health care industry, he brought his environmental “baggage” with him. The timing couldn't have been better since Rutgers was then faced with implementing recycling to comply with New Jersey's mandatory recycling law, effective in 1987. Although the state law required 25 percent of the waste stream to be recycled, since 1995 Rutgers has achieved 60 to 65 percent - unprecedented in higher education - and saved millions of dollars in expenses.
Using a life cycle analysis, Lyons set up a system to monitor and track nearly all goods coming onto and leaving Rutgers' campuses. All university contracts contain language requiring vendors to help the University minimize waste and maximize environmental responsibility.

WHERE INNOVATIONS BEGIN
With all this in place, this is where the innovation begins. States Lyons: “It's all about negotiation; it's all about sharing your needs.” Case in point: Rutgers purchased the bulk of its furniture from Steelcase. Each piece of furniture was packaged in multiple layers of cardboard, so after unpackaging one chair, the dumpster was full. “We were paying for the chair and to throw away the waste that came with it,” says Lyons, “We decided in the contract that we wanted all our furniture shipped in packing blankets. Overnight it was a success - Steelcase was happy because they didn't have to waste time in the manufacturing process in packaging things up that went to Rutgers, and Rutgers got the chair, took off the blankets and sent them back to Steelcase for reuse.”
Another way Rutgers negotiates contracts so the waste never hits the waste bins is by including a condition in the contract that the manufacturer takes back the product to recycle, or a third party is involved in recycling it. For example, Rutgers' fluorescent light bulb supplier Phillips found a third party contract firm in the Bronx that recycles the bulbs. The metal tips which are recyclable are sheared off the bulbs, the phosphorous and harsh materials are taken out of the bulbs and the glass is recycled.
Now in his current role of working with organizations, his area of expertise is looking at very specific purchasing decisions that are being made and what impacts those have that are both broad and specific. Supply chain managers look at everything about a product - from raw material extraction, manufacturing, by-products, marketing, shipping and consumption. Very few supply chain managers are looking at the environmental impacts of the supply chain. “The only time they ever do start looking at environmental impacts is when they find they have a problem. Then they're going to have to step in and say, what happened?” But what Lyons advocates is being proactive: “You've got to be thinking of these things up front. Because if you wait until it becomes a disposal issue or hazardous waste issue, that can detract from the entire process.”
Under a New York Department of Environmental Conservation grant, Lyons is working with New York City Transit Authority. The proactive approach has already paid off with decision to use soy-based mechanical oils for the elevator shafts in the Authority's office building. When the aging system developed a leak in the shaft, the oil poured out into the elevator pit. What under “normal” circumstances would have been a haz mat situation, instead was cleaned up “by a couple of guys with mops”.

FIXING PROBLEMS WITH BRAIN POWER
Lyons revels in the development process involved. “When there's a problem the first thing you do is throw some money at it to fix it. To become creative, you have to say we have no money and we have to fix this problem with some brain power. And that's when you come up with these really creative solutions.”
What Lyons also tries to advocate is that “you don't slam things down people's throats. You bring them into the process, make them take ownership of it and then it doesn't matter if they were the one who came up with the idea - they have fun with it.”
Lyons also wants companies to recognize the power they wield by going green. A major bank wanted to enhance their landscaping contract to an environmentally responsible contract for irrigation and no lawn chemical use at all of their branches. At first they thought “nobody is going to bid on this and we'll lose all our current bids,” says Lyons. “But what happened was 156 suppliers responded. It happened in the same realm of cost factors, so they're not blowing the bank because they are doing something innovative and green. And when you look at a company that size, who is going to say we don't have time for this stuff, we'll take our business elsewhere? That's a huge gorilla that's saying we want it green and we want it done this way. So, if you get this contract, it's very lucrative.”
When not working with the national and international companies, schools, municipalities or NGOs that seek his guidance, Lyons is pursuing other ways of creating fertile ground for green purchasing. He teaches an Ecological Business Management class at Rutgers' Cook College and will be conducting a two-day short course on Supply Chain Procurement in Environmental Situations for corporate executives, university and high level purchasers in supply chain management and others.
Lyons sees that it is just as vital to convey the message to youth as well. He is working with the EcoComplex on a project getting local school children involved in addressing sustainable land management as their area transitions from farmland to suburbs. He also is working with minority college students through Rutgers Equal Opportunity Fund to involve minority children in Camden, New Jersey schools in environmental initiatives.

DUMPSTER DIVING AND ARCHEOLOGICAL DIGS
And in his “free time”, what research scientist for environmental supply chain management could resist going “dumpster diving”? In Lyons' case, the biggest “dumpster” at his disposal is the bioreactor landfill at the Burlington County Resource Recovery Complex, where the EcoComplex is located. First Lyons will be examining the waste as it relates to products and packaging. These will be assessed on the basis of: Where did it come from; as far as product design, could it have been done better; Packaging, a big part of waste in a landfill - should it have been biodegradable; Can you make an argument for alternative packaging, etc.
The second component will turn the landfill into a small archeological dig. Working with the WINLAB (Wireless Information Network Laboratory) at Rutgers to design microchips and sensors that will relay conditions of deterioration in the landfill, hundreds and eventually thousands of these microchips will be placed on waste items and will relay to a computer the deterioration conditions inside the landfill.
Lyons has also authored many articles and books on supply chain environmental management. His book “Buying for the Future: Contract Management and the Environmental Challenge” covers purchasing policy design and implementation strategies; how to write environmentally-sensitive contracts; the relevance of environmental laws; understanding the competitive bidding process; enforcing the environmental responsibilities of suppliers; and developing national and international gatekeeping partnerships. He works with large and small entities interested in implementing green purchasing policies. He can be reached at 609-499-3600, ext. 224 or at klyons@aesop.rutgers.edu. For businesses interested in pursuing environmental purchasing opportunities with the federal government, he recommends going to EPA's Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines website, www.epa.gov/cpg.
Judging from the many projects too numerous to mention in this article, Lyons is a busy person. As one of a handful of people who work in environmental supply chain management, his work is cut out for him. But if he has his way, soon the field will grow beyond a handful, and buying green will become mainstream.

Cindy Rovins is an Agricultural Communications Editor for Rutgers Cooperative Research & Extension. Her e-mail is rovins@aesop.rutgers.edu.

GREEN PURCHASING POWER WITH MUSCLE
In a study, Kevin Lyons conducted in 2002, it was determined the U.S. federal government is the largest purchaser of goods and services, with $250 billion in purchases - not in construction and airplanes, but on stuff we use every day, such as paper, etc. With this knowledge, the government recognizes that it can push the marketplace to make more environmentally responsible products, because they are such a big customer with a lot of clout. “That'” says Lyons, “is their tag line that you see in all their policies.”
Lyons also points out that “higher education has a huge opportunity to rival the federal government to push this agenda. Higher education, however, doesn't do it collectively, we all do our own thing.” Lyons hopes to change that this year by working with his fellow members of the National Association of Educational Buyers. He communicates the environmental agenda through lectures at their annual conferences.