Economy and Ecology: The Benefits of Green Purchasing

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Economy and Ecology The Benefits of Green
Purchasing

• Walter Simpson, Chair
• Executive Order 4 Advisory Council

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Value Clarifiers

• Our lifestyles (and purchasing habits) are kind
  to the environment.

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Value Clarifiers

• We have obligations to future generations.

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Value Clarifiers

• If you recycle, you are doing your fair share to
  protect the environment.

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Value Clarifiers

• In the future, there is likely to be an
  increasing amount of conflict and war over scarce
  resources like oil.

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Value Clarifiers

• Climate change is mostly a scare campaign.

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Value Clarifiers

• Achieving environmental sustainability is
  critically important to human survival.

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Value Clarifiers

• The green economy is a distant dream.

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Value Clarifiers

• Purchasing agents are a force to be reckoned with!

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Green Procurement? Huh? What?

• Deliberate strategy to buy products which are
  safe to use and good for the environment
• Use of government buying power to stimulate
  market demand for green products and services
• A strategy for environmental protection
• An engine for the promised new green economy

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UB Environmentally Sound Products Procurement
Policy

• Durable, as opposed to the single-use or
  disposable
• Made of recycled materials (max post-consumer
  content)
• Non-toxic or minimally toxic, preferably
  biodegradable
• Highly energy efficient in production and use
• Recyclable or, if not, safely disposable
• Made of raw materials obtained in an
  environmentally sound, sustainable manner by
  companies with good environmental track records
• Causing minimal or no environmental damage during
  normal use or maintenance
• Shipped with minimal packaging, preferably made
  of recycled and/ or recyclable materials
• Produced locally or regionally

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One (Almost) UB Success . . .

• Purchasing 100 post-consumer waste content
  copier and printer paper
• Initial purchase by UB CIT
• Special deal with Staples
• Up to 2/3 of UB paper
• 14 trailer trucks X 0.667
• 9 trailers
• But never got a policy, never got to 100

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Thank You Governor David Paterson!

• Green procurement
• Sustainable state agencies

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Executive Order 4

• Consider these factors in purchasing
• Public health and the environment
• Avoidance of toxic substances
• Pollution reduction and prevention
• Sustainable resource management, manufacturing,
  and production
• Reduction of greenhouse gases
• Use of renewable resources, remanufactured
  components, and recycled content
• Waste minimization
• Quality, durability and utility
• Life cycle cost minimization

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Disclaimer

• Proceed at your
• own risk

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Thinking Like an Environmentalist

• Spaceship Earth
• Limited size and resources
• Limited carry capacity for passengers
• Fragile life support system
• Interdependence and need for cooperation
• Survival at stake

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Spaceship Earth

• Origins
• Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for
  Spaceship Earth (1963)
• Adlai Stevenson, speech to UN (1965)
• We travel together, passengers on a little
  space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves
  of air and soil all committed for our safety to
  its security and peace preserved from
  annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I
  will say, the love we give our fragile craft.

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John Muir

• The clearest way into the Universe is through a
  forest wilderness.

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Everything Is Connected

• When we try to pick out anything by itself, we
  find it hitched to everything else in the
  universe.
• -- John Muir

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ImagineA Simple Table Lamp
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Following the Cord
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We Can Never Do . . . Just One Thing

• Some examples
• Turn on a light
• Take a drug
• Spray the dandelions
• Widen the highway
• Have children

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Social and Environmental Costs

• When you try to do one thing, other things happen
• Unintended side effects, costs, consequences,
  impacts
• Internal and external costs
• Minimizing or mitigating those costs
• Technological conservatism

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Unintended Side Effects ExternalitiesTragedy
of the Commons

• Farmers behavior creates externalities
• These costs are passed on to others
• The carry capacity is exceeded
• The fix? Internalize costs!

Garrett Hardin
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Unintended Side Effects ExternalitiesBody
Chemical Burden

• Bill Moyers 2005 blood test
• 84 chemicals found in body
• Pesticides
• PCBs (not manufactured
• since 1977)

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Unintended Side Effects ExternalitiesBaby You
Can Drive My Car
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Unintended Side Effects ExternalitiesLong
Distance Food
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Unintended Side Effects ExternalitiesProduct
Global Supply Chain

• The Story of Stuff
• We arent paying for the stuff we buy
• -- Annie Leonard

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vdz3tPxUFGbY
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Systems Thinking

• Since everything is connected we need to look at
  the whole process and not just one piece of it.

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Systems Thinking 1Magnification of Energy Waste
Demonstrates the power of end use energy
conservation!
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Systems Thinking 2Cradle-to-Grave Product
Lifecycle

• Dollar, social, environmental costs at each step

Presents opportunities at every step to reduce
impacts
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Systems Thinking 3Cradle-to-Cradle Closed Loop
Holy Grail
By William McDonough Michael Braungart
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Environmental Impact

• E.I. P X C X T
• Where
• P Population
• C Average level of consumption
• T Technology

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People
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Population Problem

• 1 billion in 1802
• 2 billion in 1927
• 3 billion in 1961
• 4 billion in 1974
• 5 billion in 1987
• 6 billion in 1999
• 6.8 billion in 2009

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Current Human Population Growth Rate

• Equal to 10 New York Cities per Year

X10
8 Million X 10 every year
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Population Is a Problem Because of Affluence

• Average American consumes more than 50 times as
  much as the average person in Haiti or Bangladesh
• One U.S. baby impact of 50 babies in those
  countries
• Whos over-populating?

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Affluence
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Critique of Materialism and Consumerism

• Needs vs. wants
• Consumer society
• Simple living vs. Affluenza
• How much is enough?

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Defining Success
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Henry David Thoreau

• I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune
  it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns,
  cattle, and farming tools for these are more
  easily acquired than got rid of. Better they had
  been born in the open pasture and suckled by a
  wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes
  what field they were called to labor in.

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George Carlin

• A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on
  it. You can see that when you're taking off in an
  airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got
  a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of
  stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta
  lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and
  take some of your stuff. They always take the
  good stuff. They never bother with that crap
  you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff.
  That's what your house is, a place to keep your
  stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!...

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Mahatma Gandhi

• The Earth provides enough to satisfy every mans
  need, but not enough for every mans greed.

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Limits to Growth

• People Stuff
• We cant keep
• growing like this.
• The Earth is finite!

Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers
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Exponential Growth

• Rule of 70
• E.g. 1.2 growth rate
• 70/1.2 58 year
• doubling rate
• Parable of the
• Lily Pond

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Technology
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Technology Vignette 1A Light Bulb Goes Off
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Technology Vignette 2Bottled Water vs. Tap Water
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Technology Vignette 3Appropriate Technology
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Technology Vignette 4Green Buildings
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The Greenest Building Is

• The one not built

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PAT Ecological Footprint

• How many planets do we need to sustain us?
• How many planets would we need if everyone lived
  like average Americans?

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Sustainability
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SustainabilitySome Simple Definitions

• Activities that can continue into the future and
  last
• Persisting for generations

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Brundtland Commission

• Meeting the needs of the present while not
  compromising the ability of future generations to
  meet their needs. (1987)
• Justice component in sustainable development
• Eradicating poverty
• Obligations to future generations
• Social, economic and
• environmental dimensions

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A New Decision-Making Paradigm

• Future generations as stakeholders

Seven Generations
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A New Paradigm of Ownership

• We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors,
  we borrow it from our children. 
• --Native American Proverb

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A New Paradigm of Happiness Well Being
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What Sustainability Means for the Environment

• Switch from non-renewable to renewable resources
• Harvest renewable resources no quicker than they
  regenerate
• Eliminate the concept of waste reduce, reuse,
  recycle everything
• No emissions beyond what ecosystems can break
  down naturally
• Break the fossil fuel habit and run society on
  solar energy

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What Sustainability Means for Energy

• Climate neutrality
• Soft Energy Path (Amory Lovins, 1976)

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Sustainability Vignette

• Malcolm Wells checklist for design
  sustainability
• Wilderness as the
• sustainability standard

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Wilderness . . .

• Creates pure air
• Creates pure water
• Stores rainwater
• Produces its own food
• Creates rich soil
• Uses solar energy

• Stores solar energy
• Creates silence
• Consumes its own wastes
• Provides wildlife habitat
• Moderates local weather
• Is beautiful

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Sustainability Vignette

• Bicycle vs. car
• Equity and Energy,
• Ivan Illich

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Sustainability How Urgent?

• Population doubling every 80 years
• Developing countries want the American Dream
  while rich want more
• __________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________
  
• Factor 4 increase in consumption and
  environmental impact

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Sustainability How Urgent?

• More people who want more
• Reliance on fossil fuels
• Peak oil
• Resource wars
• Climate change

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Climate Change
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Worst Case?

• Business-as-usual scenario 5 degree rise this
  century
• 3 million years ago temperature was 5 degrees
  warmer
• Sea level 80 feet higher!
• --Jim Hansen, Director, NASA Goddard
• Institute for Space Studies

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Hansens Warnings

• We have 1 more degree of warming and ten years
• We are approaching tipping points
• Safe concentration of CO2 is 350 ppm

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Putting E.O. 4 in Context

• Its based on systems thinking
• Seeks to
• Minimize the environmental impact
• Maximize health benefits
• Help build the green economy
• An important step in the right direction for a
  very high impact activity

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Building MaterialsMaximizing Environmental
Benefits

• Energy efficient
• Low embodied energy and carbon emissions
• Enhanced IEQ
• Biobased content
• Recyclable or reusable components
• Recycled-content
• Reduced or eliminated toxic substances
• Reduced waste
• Use of renewable energy
• Water efficient

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CarpetsMaximizing Environmental Benefits

• Low or no volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
• No toxic dyes
• Recyclable
• Recycled-content
• Low imbodied energy use and carbon emissions
• Reduced or improved air emissions (from
  manufacturing)

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Cleaning SuppliesMaximizing Environmental
Benefits

• Minimizes exposure to concentrates
• No ozone depleting substances
• Reduced bioconcentration factor
• Reduced flammability
• Reduced or no added dyes, fragrances, skin
  irritants, volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
• Reduced packaging
• Recyclable and recyclable-content in packging

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ElectronicsMaximizing Environmental Benefits

• Reduced or no toxic constituents
• Recycled-content
• Designed for recycling
• Reduced materials use
• Energy efficient
• Extended product life, upgradeable
• Reduced and recyclable packaging
• Environmentally sound take-back and recycling
  options

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FleetsMaximizing Environmental Benefits

• Fuel-efficient reduced carbon emissions
• Alternatively fueled
• Cleaner fuel
• Electric
• Fuel cell
• Hybrid-electric
• Low emissions
• No or low hazardous materials

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Landscaping Maximizing Environmental Benefits

• Reduced or no pesticide use
• Low-impact development
• Reduced grass cutting
• Water efficiency
• Use of native plants
• Recycled-content materials
• Waste reduction and recycling, including
  composting

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Green Purchasing to the Max

• Commit to environmental thinking
• Recognize the power of green purchasing
• Buy the greenest green products you can
• Less may be more

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Addressing the Cost Issue

• Hopefully no premium
• If higher costs, think about costs in a new way
• Its a better product
• Life cycle or cradle-to-grave analysis
• External costs internalized
• Health and environmental benefits
• Boosting green economy
• Getting a lot for taxpayers money
• Controlling costs
• Market development
• Conservation
• Use less buy less same or lower costs

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Frances Moore Lappe

• Every decision we make is a vote for the kind of
  world we want to live in.

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Frances Moore Lappecould have said

• Every purchase that purchasing agents make is,
  in a sense, a vote for the kind of world they
  want to live in.

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Margaret Mead
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Margaret MeadCould have said

• Never doubt that a large group of purchasing
  agents can change the world. Indeed, I think they
  can!

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Thank You!
Walter Simpson enconser_at_buffalo.edu
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Visit the UB Green Environmental Library
UB Green Office Service Building 220 Winspear
Ave South Campus 829-3535
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Thank You!

• For more information
• Walter Simpson
• wsimpson_at_facilities.buffalo.edu
• http//wings.buffalo.edu/ubgreen

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Examples of Exploited Commons

• Public lands
• Rangeland
• Logging
• Oceans
• Fisheries
• Pollution
• Atmosphere
• Air pollution
• Climate change

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How to Prevent the Tragedy?

• Fix the incentives
• Give a piece of the action
• Internalize externalized costs

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Meadows, Meadows, and Randers

• Balance P X C X T so that
• Everyone has an adequate standard of living
• Material and energy throughputs meet these
  conditions
• Rates of use of renewable resources do not exceed
  rates of regeneration
• Rates of use of non-renewable resources do not
  exceed the rate at which sustainable substitutes
  are developed
• Rates of pollution do not exceed assimilative
  capacity of the environment

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Rejected by Daly

• Some definitions of sustainability are
  counterproductive
• Cant have continuous development regardless of
  the earths limits
• 
  
• 
  Herman Daly

SAME SIZE
The Earth is not getting any bigger
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Technology

• Meeting a need with reduced environmental impact

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Environmental Sustainability

• Helpful, insightful term?
• Broadens the discussion?
• Focuses us on long term quality of life and
  survival issues?
• Lends credibility and weight?

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Environmental Sustainability

• Loaded, slippery term?
• Misused?
• Co-opted?
• Intentionally weak in order to garner support?
• Contradictory if it allows growth?

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Sustainability -- How Urgent?

• Population
• Consumption
• Technology

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Unintended Side Effects