The Sustainable Purchasing course will arm you with what you need to know about what to buy and whom to buy from. All concepts will be introduced in practical and digestible lessons. We will start with the foundational understanding of the environmental impacts of a product’s lifecycle and then move to the criteria that should be considered. These criteria go way beyond concepts such as recycled content paper or energy-efficient light fixtures.
Topics Covered:
Unit 1: Overview
This is a fast-paced overview of the lifecycle of a product. It concludes with examples of some commonly purchased items.
Unit 2: Products & Packaging
The environmental and social impacts introduced in Unit 1 are distilled into criteria that you can apply to everyday purchases.
Unit 3: Vendors & Manufacturers
This focuses on criteria for whom you should buy from
Unit 4: Choose Your Path
Now you take what you have learned in the previous units and apply them to the situation in your office
Bonus Materials:
#1 Sustainable Criteria Booklet
This booklet takes the environmental issues associated with office products, including personal illness, habitat and species loss, pollution, and resource depletion – and codifies those impacts into simple, easily identifiable criteria for products commonly purchased for office operations.
#2 Selection Tools Booklet
This is an index of the Terminology, Ecolabels, and Apps that will help you make the best product selections
#3 Ranking Worksheet
This is a spreadsheet tool where you can list what you are already purchasing as a baseline, choose applicable criteria you would like to aim for, prioritize them, and plan which changes you will implement over the next three years.