Sustainable Procurement kick-off summit

The newly re-established Sustainable Procurement Working Group (SPWG) held its first ever summit on February 1st and 2nd in San Diego. Procurement and sustainability representatives from all campuses participated in the workshop, as well as some key players from industry and our own student body. The SPWG was recently formed (after a hiatus of a few years) with the support of UC Procurement Services, the Procurement Leadership Council (PLC), the UCOP Office of Sustainability and the Sustainability Steering Committee.

This zero waste event was hosted by UC San Diego at The Village Fifteen conference center, which is a welcoming venue with a great view of the Pacific Ocean. The first day started with opening remarks from SPWG Co-Chairs Darin Matthews and Hilary Bekmann, as well as remarks from Director of Strategic Sourcing, Justin Sullivan. This was followed by ‘quick fire’ presentations on numerous topics of interest. These included presentations on the state-wide Million Bulb/Lamp Challenge, on supplier scorecards and product flagging in eCommerce systems, on the creation of a systemwide business case for supplier diversity, on tools to assess Total Cost of Ownership, Life Cycle Analysis and much more!

On the second day, the Sustainable Procurement Working Group came together to focus on identifying projects to tackle for the next year based on presentations and feedback from our partners on Day 1. The group’s objective was to define specific projects to drive in 2017 that provide the best support to the University of California in the area of sustainable procurement. A preliminary list of projects has been identified and timelines/project objectives will be clarified later this month.

The 2017 projects the SPWG will focus on:

  • Education & Training
  • Development of Environmentally Preferable Policy Guidelines
  • Surplus Sales Optimization
  • Development of UC Supplier Diversity Business Case
  • Development of UC-wide Supplier Scorecard
  • Waste Analysis/Zero Waste Lab
  • UC Electric Vehicle Program
  • Procurement/Sustainability Collaboration Plan
  • Sustainable Procurement Incentive Fund

Be on the lookout for updates on the working group and reach out to your campus representative if you have any questions or would like to discuss how you can help support sustainable procurement initiatives!

The nice thing about sustainability is that there is always more we can be doing.

Sustainable Procurement Working Group Members

  • Hilary Bekmann, UC Office of the President (co-chair)
  • Darin Matthews, UC Santa Cruz (co-chair)
  • Stephanie Lopez, UC Office of the President (manager)
  • Karen Meade, UC Merced
  • Roesia Gerstein, UC San Francisco/Berkeley
  • Carla Prado, UC Berkeley
  • Julie Alvarez, UC Davis
  • Marina Zdobnova, UC Los Angeles
  • David Casale, UC Riverside
  • Shaina Sims, UC Irvine
  • Mark Ortiz, UC San Diego
  • Heather Perry, UC Santa Barbara