Mega-consumers are Critical to an Environmentally Sustainable Future

Environment News Service, July 24, 2003

Washington, DC

Mega-consumers such as government agencies, corporations, international organizations, and universities are critical to the effort to shift the world toward an environmentally sustainable future, finds a new study from the Worldwatch Institute.

Environmentalists often focus on changing the consumption patterns of individuals, but these large institutions spend billions of dollars
annually on goods and services and hold considerable sway over the
health and stability of many of the world's fragile ecological
systems.

The enormous purchases of these large institutions from vehicle
fleets to cleaning supplies, "can have far greater consequences for
the future of our planet than the buying habits of most individual
households," said report author and Worldwatch Research Associate Lisa
Mastny.

"Green purchasing will never be a magic solution to the world's
rampant resource consumption, but it does offer tremendous
opportunities for lessening the impacts," says Mastny.

The study by the international research organization - titled
"Purchasing Power: Harnessing Institutional Procurement for People and
the Planet" - details how the large scale, systematic approach that
most institutions take in their purchasing can have large ripple
effects on which products are used by hundreds or even thousands of
individuals.

Government purchasing, for example, accounts for as much as 25
percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in some industrial countries.

Government procurement in the European Union alone totaled more than
$1 trillion in 2001, or 14 percent of GDP, and in North America, it
reached $2 trillion, or about 18 percent of GDP.

Worldwatch notes that universities spend billions of dollars each
year on everything from campus buildings to cafeteria food.

In the United States, colleges bought some $25 billion in goods and
services in 1999 - equivalent to nearly three percent of U.S. GDP.

International organizations are massive spenders as well, with the
United Nations spending nearly $14 billion on goods and services in
2000.

"Just one environmentally focused purchasing policy or guidance - if
properly implemented and enforced - can bring widespread benefits to
an institution," Mastny explained. "By investing in everything from
energy-efficient lighting to organic food, growing numbers of
businesses, government agencies, hospitals, and other organizations
are not only creating safer and healthier workplaces, but are also
saving money."

Global consumption spending has increased six fold since 1950,
according to the United Nations, with the wealthiest one-fifth of the
world responsible for the vast majority of this spending. But Mastny
reports that if enough demand for green products is generated, entire
markets can shift.

For example, a 1993 directive by President Bill Clinton ordering the
United States government to buy only computer equipment that met the
higher energy efficiency standards of the government's Energy Star
program helped set into motion a "massive overhaul of the consumer
market."

The U.S. government is the world's single largest computer buyer and
Worldwatch finds that Clinton's directive helped change the market to
its current state, where 95 percent of all monitors, 80 percent of
computers, and 99 percent of printers sold in North America meet
Energy Star standards.

The report says that government purchasing is credited with spurring
the rise of recycled paper to the level of standard office supply in
many European countries.

Large corporations have a critical role to play in the push for
sustainability - the report details the impact of U.S. home
improvement retailer Home Depot's 1999 adoption of a green purchasing
policy.

Responding in part to pressure from the Rainforest Action Network,
Home Depot's decision helped shift other retailers to phase out
endangered wood products and favor wood coming from sustainably
managed forests. Today retailers accounting for more than 20 percent
of the wood sold for the U.S. home remodeling market have made adopted
similar policies and two of the nation's biggest homebuilders also
pledged not to buy endangered wood.

Although green purchasing initiatives are gaining favor in the
industrialized world, Worldwatch acknowledges that the developing
world is a different story. And rising consumer demand in development
countries only adds to the challenge.

Mastny suggests that institutions can help spread green purchasing in
developing countries is by using their own procurements to strengthen
local green markets.

The United Nations, the World Bank and multinational corporations can
stimulate green markets by seeking to buy a greater portion of their
goods and services from local green suppliers - something that Mastny
adds can help these institutions and companies combat mounting
criticism about the environmental impacts of their activities.

As more institutions realize that green purchasing can improve
employee health, the environment, and the bottom line, Mastny says,
"groups that disregard environmental factors risk being left behind."

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Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2003. All Rights Reserved.

Tina Bologna - Editor - bologna@gsenet.org

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