Green Building Supplies
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RPN's Green Building Supplies Project helps government agencies, public institutions, and businesses identify and purchase environmentally preferable hardware supplies. Product categories addressed by the project include ENERGY STAR-certified lighting equipment and appliances; rechargeable batteries; certified low-toxicity cleaners, floor maintenance chemicals, hand soap,s and paint; recycled-content trash bags, recycling bins, and janitorial paper products; water conservation devices; and other facility maintenance products that offer environmental and/or health benefits.
RPN kicked off the project in 2013 by creating a set of Green Hardware Supplies fact sheets and hosting a webinar on this topic with support from the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). These resources highlight products with legitimate — and often third party-verified — green claims that are available from three major institutional vendors of Facilities Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) Supplies: Grainger, Fastenal, and MSC Industrial Supplies.
RPN is working to “green” these Facilities MRO contracts because thousands of public agencies and institutions across the United States purchase hardware supplies from one or more of these vendors — often by using price agreements developed by the WSCA-NASPO Cooperative Purchasing Organization or another cooperative purchasing organization.
The Facilities MRO contracts offer some products that enable government agencies, educational institutions, and businesses to conserve energy and water, reduce toxic exposures to facility staff, and create markets for recyclable materials. At the same time, these contracts offer a much wider array of competing products that are less efficient, contain ingredients known to cause cancer or asthma, or are made without sustainable materials.
“We see a tremendous opportunity to use our collective purchasing power to convince vendors of hardware supplies to offer a more robust supply of certified low-toxicity and energy-efficient products and to more clearly label these 'green' items so they can be more easily identified by purchasing agents,” explained Alicia Culver, RPN’s Executive Director. “We also want hardware suppliers to stop offering competing products that are not certified by the ENERGY STAR Program, Green Seal, UL Environment, or other third-party verifiers of environmentally preferable products,” she added.
RPN Resources
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NASPO Technical Assistant Grant to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Final Report: Environmentally Preferable Product Specifications for Facilities Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) Contract - June 2016As part of a technical assistance grant from the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO), RPN helped the Commonwealth of Massachusetts develop recommendations for environmentally preferable product (EPP) specifications and sustainability-related language to include in its Facilities Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) statewide contract. Much of the work assembled for this grant helped to successfully add environmental specifications to the Commonwealth’s Participating Agreement (PA), in addition to integrating environmental specifications and a green market-basket products into the final ValuePoint Facilities MRO Request for Responses (RFR) that is currently being bid in June 2016 with the Lead State of Nevada. The PA can be used as a model for other states wanting to further green their ValuePoint Facilities MRO contract. In addition, the green specifications and market basket (core) list may be used by other states bidding their own facilities MRO contracts. |
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MRO Fact Sheets - March 2014With support from the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), RPN developed a set of fact sheets highlighting the environmentally preferable products offered on three NASPO/WSCA contracts for Facilities Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) supplies: Fastenal, Grainger, and MSC. These national cooperative contracts offer a wide array of green hardware supplies such as:
Download the Fastenal Fact Sheet |
Additional Resources
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Fastenal Green Product Website and CatalogGreen product categories include:
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Grainger Green Product Website and CatalogGreen product categories include:
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MSC Green Product Website and CatalogGreen product categories include:
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Webinars
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RPN Webinar: Greening Facility MRO Contracts - April 19, 2017This webinar highlighted how Massachusetts recently used NASPO Green Technical Assistance funds to add sustainability standards to several Facility Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) contracts with the help of RPN's technical team:
This webinar featured:
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RPN Webinar: Green Hardware Supplies - Sept 10, 2014With support from the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), RPN developed a set of fact sheets highlighting the environmentally preferable products offered on three NASPO/WSCA contracts for green hardware supplies: Fastenal, Grainger, and MSC. Webinar attendees learned what constitutes a "green" hardware supply and how these products can yield environmental, health, and economic benefits to their operations. They heard first-hand from representatives of three major green hardware suppliers on how to find green products on their websites and purchase them at discounted prices through cooperative price agreements. This webinar featured:
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RPN Webinar: Green Purchasing for Existing Buildings - Sept 28, 2011Existing buildings are a major contributor to Americans' environmental impact. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in addition to producing 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, existing commercial buildings in the public and private sector:
However, with procurement choices and smart operations, building owners and occupants can dramatically improve their environmental footprint. The webinar covered:
This webinar featured:
This webinar was offered as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Regional Pollution Prevention Program Offices' Source Reduction Assistance Grant Program. |