Printer Friendly Page

The Purchasing Department supports the purchase of recycled products and environmentally preferred purchasing practices. Purchasing is a member of, and has been working with, the University’s Environmental Oversight Committee to ensure that the University’s sustainability goals and objective are being met in this area.

Purchasing works with several cooperative purchasing groups to identify potential new cost savings and contracting opportunities. Purchasing has been active in the “green” movement for some time, as evidenced by the following initiatives:

• 1995 – Developed, implemented, and manage the University’s Surplus Redistribution and Recycle Program. The Surplus program steers thousands of products into recycling and managed-disposal vendors on an annual basis.
• 1996 - Became a member of the Green Seal Environmental Partners Program to advocate the use of green products.
• 2001 - Established a contract and drop-off procedure for the campus laser toner recycling program. This program will be expanded into a broader range of toner cartridges.
• 2002 - Began to set aside a section of the annual Purchasing Vendor Fair for environmentally-friendly products, which continues today.
• 2003 - Launched a “green” catalog of environmentally-friendly products that are maintained in the PeopleSoft purchasing system, as well as a special online recycled office supplies catalog with the University's preferred contract supplier for office paper and supplies.
• 2004 - Began the campus-wide recycled-content paper initiative (Read the article entitled, "Student-Driven Sustainability Effort at Princeton University").
• 2005 - Analysis of products bought by the Housing Office (e.g. air conditioners, refrigerators) to acquire Energy Star products. This project will be expanded into a broader range of products/departments (e.g. automobiles, lighting, etc.).
• 2006 - Coordinated a dorm furniture recycling and donation project, which analyzed donation, recycling and disposal costs to reveal that donation is the least expensive method for surplus management. Although each project is different, in most cases, donation is 20%-30% less expensive than disposal, and 10%-15% less expensive than recycling. In Princeton’s case, this new initiative will result in an approximate 17% cost savings in disposal costs for these projects.
• 2007 - Participated in a Roundtable Discussion on Sustainability that was held at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA on August 10, 2007.
• 2008 - Launched a reuseable delivery box intiative in an effort to reduce the amount of cardboard and packaging material used by Princeton for OfficeMax deliveries. Participated in Princeton's Sustainability Open House: Introducing Princeton's Green Initiatives on September 17, 2008.

We recommend considering the overall environmental impact of a product's lifecycle when making a purchase, such as:

• Is the product energy efficient?
• Does it have a high recycled/post-consumer content?
• Is it reusable?
• Does it have less packaging?
• Will it last/is it durable?
• Was it produced locally?
• Overall, is it the least environmentally damaging throughout it's lifecycle (i.e., manufacturing, use, and disposal)?

The Purchasing Department is always looking for areas where we can improve with regard to the purchase of recycled and environmentally preferred products.

Reference: Purchasing Policy 4.9 - Environmentally Preferable Purchasing