THE GREENING OF IMAGING PRODUCTS STANDING OFFERS

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Leo Payne
6 years ago
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2 PUBLIC SECTOR PROCUREMENT PROJECT: THE GREENING OF IMAGING PRODUCTS STANDING OFFERS TEAM NAME: IMAGING PRODUCT MANAGEMENT GROUP ORGANIZATION: PUBLIC WORKS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES CANADA CATEGORY OF PUBLIC SECTOR: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TEAM MEMBERS: LINDA JELLICOE (LEADER), JOHN NAISBY & SACHIN SOBHEE OBJECTIVES OF THE INITIATIVE For close to fifteen years, the Imaging Product Management Group (IPMG), a dedicated procurement team within Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC), has been working to mitigate the environmental impacts of a dirty little commodity imaging devices. Based out of Vancouver, the team is responsible for the procurement of about 85 to 90% of the printers and digital copiers acquired by the federal government offices across Canada. BRIEF DESCRIPTION As mentioned above, printers and copiers as a commodity are almost inherently anti environmental, the antithesis of green. Printers and copiers are often built on other continents and shipped here using lots of big transportation and lots of packaging; they use a fair amount of power even at rest, emit ozone - impacting on indoor air quality - and produce heat, causing more air conditioning to be needed. The use of printers and copiers requires lots of paper, used much of the time on one side only, and toxic inks and toners which are packaged in large multimaterial units which often end up in the garbage stream. Printers and copiers are cumbersome to dispose of at the end of their useful life and the low cost of some of the devices compared with that of their consumables provokes some people to buy new printers rather than new consumables, resulting in even more landfill. The best environmental program for printers and copiers may well be the on/off switch or not buying them at all. However, since we seem further away than ever from the paperless office, the IPMG has been working with government departments and industry for a number of years to establish some environmental checks and balances in the procurement of printers and digital copiers, both to give advantages to suppliers for having environmental programs in place and to generate data to make environmentally preferable procurement choices easier for government purchasers. How the IPMG chose to do this was to take a full life cycle approach to printers and copiers and to build a series of environmental discounts right into the procurement of these commodities. Most printers and digital copiers acquired by Canadian federal government departments and agencies are leased or purchased using procurement mechanisms called standing offers, which are used to meet recurring needs for services like temporary help or translation and for goods like food, stationery, office supplies, computers, and printers and copiers. Before 1992, most printers and copiers were acquired through standing offers, but on the basis of lowest cost alone. Then in 1992, the Pacific Region office of the then Supply and Services Canada was tasked with improving the procurement process for printers by setting up a better series of National Master Standing Offers. The IPMG had a few objectives:

3 2 a) Realizing that Life Cycle costs like installation and maintenance, consumables acquisition and power usage are significant but sometimes hidden costs in the acquisition and use of these products, they looked for a way to build these elements into the Standing Offers. b) Understanding that the lowest cost product did not always represent the Best Value, they sought ways to improve the determination of value for dollar. After extensive consultation with our clients and industry and determining that better products held their value better, they decided to: 1. require that all products come from proven ISO 9001/9002 certified manufacturing plants and to require a one year on-site warranty for all printers (with some geographical restrictions) to help them hold that value; 2. build sometimes hidden costs such as installation and consumables cost into the evaluation process so that they could be controlled; 3. engage a third party testing organization, (NSTL Canada Corp.) to bench test all products and assign each printer a weighted score so that our selection of products would not be based on dollars alone. This was the start. Soon they realized that they could add to the value quotient by allowing reductions in the evaluated cost of a printer based on the supplier s participation in positive, value adding environmental programs. It was a win-win: they would look better in the evaluation and the government would be more likely to buy their products, especially if purchasers valued things like being able to easily recycle toner cartridges, reduced use of electricity, and improved indoor air quality. The evaluation process looked something like this: Price + installation + cost for 10,000 prints environmental reduction Benchmark Points What was considered for the environmental reductions has changed quite a bit through the years and the IPMG has gotten more and more demanding. In the beginning, for the first two series of standing offers that were issued, the environmental reductions concentrated on the recycling of the imaging consumables giving 10% credit on the evaluated price of, first, just the cost of the imaging consumables and then on the whole evaluated cost if the vendor provides the option of rechargeable supply cartridges or is currently involved in a fully detailed and verifiable recycling program. In the lead up to the 1996 series of offers, the team decided to ramp up the program a bit. After all, this was 1995, when Green citizenship and sustainable development started to figure more heavily into government policy and Environmental Procurement was part of Total Quality Management. That year they reduced the percentage credit for consumables recycling to 2%, and added a packaging recycling credit (3%) and an energy efficiency credit (5%) for Energy Star qualification. Suppliers were required to provide proof of their participation in these programs and the information was posted in our documentation. Reductions were added for new programs for many reasons, mostly when the team was convinced that adherence by the suppliers would provide auditable improvement in either the product or the processes in producing or delivering it, but never adding up to more than a 10% reduction. In 1996, they accepted certification from the US Energy Star program although this program has now been re-packaged for the Canadian market. The request for packaging

4 3 recycling reflected a growing trend in the industry to ship products using less Styrofoam and shrink-wrap. In the supporting documents that they sent us that year, Hewlett-Packard talked about bulk shipping of DeskJet printers to their distribution point in bulk-pack trays made of recycled milk cartons reducing the need for wooden pallets. The team was getting somewhere. In the Request for Standing Offer (RFSO) for printers issued in 2000, in response to meetings that the IPMG had with both vendors and clients, it was decided to add new criteria to the reductions as well as realigning and revaluing those in place. The new programs were ISO certification and Environmental Choice EcoLogo certification. The latter, EcoLogo certification, being a Canadian-based certification program was a little risky since the NMSOs for both printers and copiers were competed at a dollar value that meant adherence to the rules of both NAFTA and WTO-AGP. While the group was pleased to be able to support the Canadian program, they eventually had to widen the criterion to permit reductions for certifications from any of the GEN supported 3 rd party tested eco-labels. In the most recent RFSO for printers issued last year, the IPMG decided to up the ante a bit and not only made packaging and consumables recycling mandatory, but now require that suppliers take back all printers supplied through the NMSO at end of life and dispose of them in a defined environmentally appropriate manner. All printers must be produced in ISO facilities and be Energy Star qualified. In addition, all printers must be delivered configured to print doublesided (duplex) documents as their default. It is likely that similar programs will be put in place for the digital copier standing offers. The IPMG s environmental initiatives have not been limited to the Environmental Reductions program. The group has been instrumental as well in assuring that environmental considerations and best practices form part of the standard analysis when putting in place procurement instruments such as standing offers, and that base lines are created and improvements charted. When PWGSC initiated The Way Forward, their program of strategic purchasing and cost reduction, the IPMG identified that the principal cost saving mechanism for imaging products was one of the four pillars of sustainability: Reduce. Although they are not leading the Managed Print Solution program, IPMG members have volunteered their knowledge of the imaging industry to the MPS team, promoting the rationalization of Government of Canada (GoC) imaging device fleets meeting both cost savings and resource use reduction objectives. Finally, IPMG members are working with the multi-lateral Sustainability Purchasing Network in the Pacific Region to assist all levels of government and private industry to green their purchasing and encourage the growth of the green goods and services sector in BC and beyond. CONTRIBUTION OF THE INITIATIVE a) MEASURABLE AND SIGNIFICANT BENEFIT The principal contribution of the Imaging Product Management Group has been the elaboration and extension of the Evaluation Reductions program for the greening of the imaging products standing offers. If the program can be judged on the basis of the adherence of imaging products suppliers to the programs and certifications that it promotes, then the Environmental Reductions program in an undoubted success. While it took longer for some than for others, most suppliers eventually achieved the missing percentage reductions: Lexmark and ISO 14001, HP and EcoLogo, Kyocera and toner bottle recycling. In fact, the program was so successful that most suppliers were achieving the full 10% reduction and that is why the decision was made to move the criteria to mandatory.

5 4 And while many printers are purchased by government departments even when their environmental programs achieve less than a full 10%, and while the IPMG have yet to screen out a printer for not having these desirable programs and attributes, the program has had other types of impacts. For example, in many cases, suppliers have been able to sell creation of such programs such as those supporting consumables recycling or adhesion to such certifications as EcoLogo to their upper management because of the visibility of the Government of Canada information and the potential size of the GoC market. Now that the environmental programs are mandatory and the GoC increasingly requires best of class equipment, it will become more important than ever to maintain qualification for such programs as Energy Star and Ecologo especially since these programs are now targeting only the top of the market. b) HIGH DEGREE OF INNOVATION When the Imaging Product Management Group first used Environmental Reductions as a means to gently persuade suppliers to provide what the group considered worthwhile programs, there were no similar programs in place in the federal government or in other sectors. That the program was innovative was further substantiated by the reaction that team members enjoyed when describing it to others in the field. Over the years, team members have been invited to local and international conferences, supplier-buyer sessions and industry briefings to explain the program and how it works. c) POTENTIAL FOR BEST PRACTICES IN GREEN PROCUREMENT PWGSC is to be congratulated on its decision to green the most commonly purchased or leased goods and services in a systematic and proactive way, using the commodity team process. The imaging commodity was the trial commodity in these sessions where industry and users, as well as procurement officers, workshopped creative processes and solutions leading to achievable yet challenging sustainability goals and ways to document progress towards them for imaging products and for others. Gradually, all major commodities will undergo this treatment d) ABILITY TO INFLUENCE THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CANADIAN MARKETPLACE FOR ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES The IPMG realizes that in many cases, imaging product manufacturers would have embraced certain aspects of sustainability without the encouragement of the IPMG and the team feels fortunate to participate in such a forward thinking industry. Much of the IPMG s work was to validate the efforts of industry to mitigate the impacts of the products that they produced and to bring this information to government users. But while historically the IPMG was to work in parallel with industry, the equipment take-back provisions in the new printer standing offers is a more aggressive tactic and the IPMG hopes that they will lead other sectors towards requiring that their suppliers take full ownership of the products that they produce. The world is reaching a time of crisis with respect to electronic waste, so it is not a moment too soon. While much of the impact of the IPMG has been on the products and services within the imaging commodity, team members have also supported green procurement across the government in general and specifically in their department and in the Pacific region. Leveraging their knowledge of green procurement practices, team members have participated in and presented at sustainability workshops and courses and will continue to work to green the imaging commodity and others.

6 It has been my privilege as the Manager of Acquisitions, Vancouver to support the Imaging Product Management Group for the last nine years. Throughout this time, I have been impressed with the IPMG staff and their dedication to the environmental cause and to the continual improvement of the environmental reductions program for the standing offers that they administer. Both colleagues and suppliers alike have commented on their professionalism and their depth of knowledge of with regards to both imaging products and sustainability. Linda, John and Sachin are always prepared to share this knowledge with others in order to assist them with the greening of their printer and copier fleets; or with sourcing other green goods and services. Please do not hesitate to contact me directly, if you would like any more information about this group. Bill Cooley Manager, Acquisitions PWGSC Pacific Region Burrard Street Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 2V8 Tel: (604) Fax: (604) mailto:bill.cooley@pwgsc.gc.ca

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