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Publications
Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2003
ISBN 0642 54955 9
The Environmental Purchasing Toolkit is designed to help purchasers consider environmental issues when purchasing a selected range of products and services. Its web address is: www.deh.gov.au/settlements/government/purchasing/tools.html
The provision of tools for environmental purchasing supports the e-procurement direction taken in the development of the Commonwealth Electronic Tender Service.
Buyers may choose to incorporate parts of the Toolkit into their existing purchasing systems. Alternatively, the Toolkit can be used to undertake a stand-alone environmental evaluation of selected products and services. A step-by-step guide given at the end of this section summarises options for using the Toolkit.
The Environmental Purchasing Toolkit comprises:
These components are described below.
Environmental checklists summarise important considerations for evaluating a product or service, together with supporting environmental information, relevant Australian Government policies and, where applicable, testimonials and tips for purchasers and users.
An initial set of environmental checklists available for use covers the following types of products and services: (Additional checklists may be added in the future.)
New checklists will be added over time.
At the Environmental Purchasing website, buyers can find out whether a checklist is available for a given product or service, by either:
The environmental checklist criteria provide a basis for generating specification language - what questions to ask in a tender and what type of information to require of bidders.
The criteria are assigned relative weightings, depending on their environmental importance. Default values are given based on a qualitative assessment by the Department of the Environment and Heritage, the Australian Greenhouse Office and their consultants. This assessment involves consideration of Australian environmental priorities, key government policies, market conditions, and relevant international examples of environmental purchasing criteria / specification sets.
Purchasers can amend these weightings if they hold different views about the relative importance of the various criteria. A buyer may decide, for example, to reduce the default weighting allocated to noise produced by a piece of equipment if the equipment will always be located well away from staff.
The following step-by-step guide shows how purchasers can use the Environmental Purchasing Toolkit to include environmental factors in purchasing decisions. By following the steps, purchasers integrate environmental performance into the product and service selection process. (See section on Integrating environmental considerations into purchasing above.) Alternatively, some purchasers may choose to use only portions of the Toolkit, such as using only some of the suggested criteria or parts of a specification.
| A step-by-step guide to using the Environmental Purchasing Toolkit. Step 1: Consider how you will integrate environmental considerations into your purchasing decision. Nominate a percentage weighting to be allocated to environmental performance if required. Step 2: Go to the Environmental Purchasing Toolkit section of Environmental purchasing. Step 3: Check whether an environmental checklist has been prepared for the product or service you are purchasing. Either select from the appropriate menu or search by product or service name. Step 4: Read the checklist criteria and supporting information as applicable. Step 5: Use the checklist criteria and supporting information in developing your specification. Step 6: Adjust default criteria weightings if appropriate. Step 7: Issue the Environmental specification. Step 8: Respond to tender queries using guidance contained in the Guide and checklist. Step 9: Evaluate responses using your normal evaluation tools. |