Sustainability

• A to Z Listing
• Campus Map
• Find People

Background

UCR completes approximately 65,000 transactions annually totaling $85 million. Roughly 90 percent of these purchases are executed through the campus’s online procurement system, UCR eBuy. This system is capable of tracking product characteristics and generating custom reports, a feature that will be enhanced in the future to populate UCR’s chosen sustainable procurement metrics. This will provide the university with a robust understanding of its purchasing behavior and enable it to observe the effect of new procurement policies.

Departmental procurement transactions represent roughly 95 percent of the university’s procurement actions, which makes the success of any sustainable procurement program at UCR dependent upon the committed participation by departments and end users. The eBuy system is used for 90 percent of these purchases. The remaining 10 percent are low dollar product and services transactions placed through UCR’s ProCard program. At this time the environmental characteristics of ProCard purchases cannot be tracked and therefore are not reflected in performance metrics.

Best Practices

The Materiel Management department runs a very successful Excess Surplus Program. The operation recycled 1,890 items in fiscal year (FY) 2007/08, including furniture, equipment and computers.

Short Term Goals

1. Adopt a written sustainable procurement policy
2. Enhance the UCR eBuy procurement system to support sustainability metric tracking
3. Develop a dedicated green procurement section in the Storehouse
4. Develop a green ordering channel as part of the Storehouse’s new “store front” website
5. Purchase Energy Star appliances and electronics for 100 percent of items covered by this standard
6. Adopt a sustainable carpet policy
7. Work with campus vendors to negotiate favorable prices for sustainable products
8. Goal 8: Purchase EPEAT-registered products for 100 percent of items covered by this standard
9. Establish a toner cartridge take-back program
10. Expand use of Green Seal cleaning chemicals to all campus departments

Intermediate Goals

1. Develop a comprehensive system for tracking purchases across campus
2. Continue to enhance the Storehouse sustainable product offerings
3. Purchase EPEAT products registered at the Silver level or higher for 100 percent of items covered by this standard
4. Switch all hand soap to an environmentally preferable product, excluding handwashing products used in UCR’s commercial kitchens
5. Encourage the use of 50 percent recycled content paper

Long Term Goals

1. Manage a mature sustainable procurement program
2. Update purchasing policies to reflect industry advancements in sustainable products and services
3. Adopt the cradle-to-cradle principle in purchasing activities