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Manual on Product-Oriented Environmental Work

3 Green Buying Guides

The Danish EPA is publishing a series of Green Buying Guides with a view to ensuring that purchasers with relatively little time can pursue an environmental sound procurement policy. EPA published around 30 Green Buying Guides, each dealing with one product category, up to the end of 1999. New guides are published regularly.

All the Green Buying Guides are based on the same concept and are divided into two parts: one containing an environmental guide and one containing background documentation.

The environmental guide part includes "good advice before purchasing", a review of the product category's environmental impact from cradle to grave, a review of the main environmental aspects to consider when purchasing in this product category, and a checklist. The checklist contains questions about important environmental aspects prepared as yes/no questions. The buyer is intended to send these questions to the supplier or manufacturer of a product. The supplier or manufacturer then puts a tick in the appropriate box beside each question and sends the checklist back to the buyer.

The background documentation describes in detail the environmental impact of the product in question, seen in a life cycle perspective. For example, the documentation explains where the environmental impact occurs, which materials can cause problems, and the importance of the energy consumption.

The environmental considerations recommended in the buying guides' checklist are broken down into categories, depending on what is thought to be the most important environmental consideration for the product category in question. For example, for computers, questions are formulated within the categories: environmental and energy labels, energy consumption, production, environmental management and occupational health and safety.

Green Buying Guides and the related background documentation (in Danish) are available free of charge from:

Miljøbutikken
Central Information
Læderstræde 3
DK-1201 Copenhagen K
Denmark
Phone +45 33 92 76 92

For further information on the Green Buying Guides, see the Danish EPA's website (www.mst.dk) under the category "Subject areas".

3.1 How can manufacturers use them?

Manufacturers can use the Green Buying Guides as a good indicator of the product-related environmental aspects on which customers (or suppliers) will normally focus.

The formulation of the checklist (as yes/no questions) means that you yourselves must be able to document to purchasers that your product is made in accordance with the environmentally sound directions given in the Green Buying Guides.

The checklist in Green Buying Guides can cover matters concerning:

	you yourselves (supplier or manufacturer) and
	your subsuppliers.

The checklist takes account of environmental aspects concerning:

	production processes
	constituents
	materials
	energy factors
	methods of disposal
	environmental and energy management
	health and safety (to a lesser degree).

An example of the way in which the questions are formulated is: "Do you avoid using xx (name of substance)?".To answer this question in the affirmative, neither you nor your suppliers must use the substance in question at all.

However, situations can arise in which a substance is being phased out or in which alternative substances can only be used in part of the assortment, so one is not in a "100% situation". In such cases, it would be relevant for you to be able to document the extent to which, for example, the substance in question is avoided, even though the answer to the question has to be no.

This means a greater quantity of information, but the information can be used in many other contexts in connection with your productoriented environmental management.

The first thing to do is to clarify which factors concern your company itself and which factors concern your subsuppliers.You can then decide how the information is to be obtained.

3.1.1 How can you prepare yourselves?

In a situation in which a buyer sends you a checklist, the questions will usually concern a specific product.To anticipate the questions, you must therefore, in principle, decide on all questions for all the company's products.

A good way of starting on this task is to collect documentation from your suppliers because that is often a very time-consuming process. In connection with your environmental management, you must consider your suppliers' environmental impacts.You should incorporate questions etc. from your work on Green Buying Guides in the relevant procedures.

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