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Roles and Responsibilities The Green
Purchasing Program (GPP) is the City commitment to promoting environmental
stewardship and reducing greenhouse gas emissions when buying goods, materials,
services, and capital improvements. The GPP is a cooperative effort among City
Departments, hosted by City Purchasing (Purchasing Services Section, of the
Purchasing and Contracting Services Division for the Department of Executive
Administration). Representatives from Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle Parks
Department, Seattle Department of Transportation, and other key departments
serve as the “Green Team." The GPP has two central policy objectives:
Guidance to City Departments The primary objective of the GPP is to provide direction and resources to City departments for product and service acquisitions and centralized controls that encourage and assure compliance. This objective is aggressively directed and implemented through the following initiatives: In addition, City Purchasing contracts include standard language that prohibits the idling of delivery vehicles and include the following mandates:
In selection of the top rated bids or proposals, the City requires bidders to identify any PBTs within their products. The City may also require bidders to describe environmental benefits of their product or service. The City has used environmental scoring as substantial selection criteria in such products as computer hardware, cleaning chemicals, paint, copier equipment, and paper products. The Green Team sponsors quarterly workshops for City staff, regional businesses and public agencies on topics such as FSC lumber, toxin reduction in LEED facility maintenance, biodiesel fuels and lubricants, recycled paper, and paper waste reduction. The City has retained a policy to share contracts with other local government agencies to allow our GPP initiatives and products to be shared and distributed beyond the City. These include products such as 100% recycled content paper, EPEAT Silver Standard desktop computers, copier equipment, FSC Certified lumber, slag cement, remanufactured laser cartridges, green janitorial products and deconstruction and salvage contracts that "recycle" buildings instead of demolishing them. Model for Citizens and Businesses The City GPP strives to serve as a model to citizens, households, government agencies, and small and large businesses alike. This policy objective was highlighted by the Mayor's Green Ribbon Commission on Greenhouse Gases, which led to the commitments and action items in the Seattle Climate Action Plan and the Climate Action Now initiatives. These major initiatives bring national and local expertise, provide commitments by Mayor Nickels, the City of Seattle and Seattle citizens and businesses, and provide models of environmental commitments that can be shared by others nationwide. As a model to citizens and other government or business agents, the City GPP seeks products or services that are:
For questions or more information, visit the Green Purchasing Links page or contact the Purchasing and Contracting Services Division:
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