Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Policy

Position Statement: GPO Environmental Responsibility

The explicit mission of Consorta’s member health care systems is to contribute to the common good, leading to economic, political and social conditions that ensure protection for the fundamental rights of all individuals. Issues that relate to human health are inherently linked to the health of the environment. Consorta is undertaking a number of initiatives to assist shareholders in selecting products that maximize environmental benefit. Consorta is committed to demonstrating environmental responsibility by helping to eliminate toxic products, working with manufacturers and hospitals to reduce waste, and helping to implement environmentally sound disposal technologies. Shareholders have directed Consorta to take a leadership role in promoting and supporting environmentally responsible purchasing practices. Because procurement of nearly every product and service a hospital needs is centralized in local, corporate or group purchasing functions, purchasing is an effective area in which to begin to improve environmental impact. It is less costly to correct a problem if action is taken close to its source. Experience shows that addressing environmental impact at its source, rather than paying for pollution abatement later on, results in lower overall costs. Environmentally responsible purchasing can help hospitals:

• Significantly improve their impact on the overall quality of the environment.
• Reduce costs due to lower overhead, avoided waste disposal, decreased liability costs or lower occupational health costs.
• Provide a healthier environment for patients, workers and employees through reduced exposure to cleaners, solvents, paints and other hazardous materials.

Consorta is responsible and accountable to members in acquiring the equipment and supplies needed to deliver high-quality, safe health care. An important aspect of that responsibility is to work closely with manufacturers to identify and/or develop products and services that minimize damage to the environment. To that end, Consorta staff is pooling hospitals’ product experiences and providing cogent feedback to manufacturers. Manufacturers are being held responsible to fulfill product performance expectations, including potential effects on the environment and patients’ health and safety. Consorta supports the initiatives of the American Hospital Association, the US Environmental Protection Agency, Health Care Without Harm, and Hospitals for a Healthy Environment to minimize the volume and toxicity of medical waste through labeling of PVC-containing products, eliminating mercury and PVC plastics, reducing wasteful packaging, and increasing recycled content. Consorta’s environmentally responsible purchasing strategy is being implemented through several means, including:

• Working closely with suppliers to identify products with potentially dangerous content as well as environmentally preferable products and good waste minimization practices. 
• Providing end-users with information on environmentally preferable product and making it easy to use those products.  
• Providing information on state-of-the-art disposal practices.  
• Monitoring the development of environmentally preferable products.

We recognize our commitment is only the first step in a long journey, and that the entire health care industry must change its way of thinking and doing. We invite all of healthcare’s purchasing decision makers, providers, suppliers, and manufacturers to invest in the research, design, production, and use of environmentally safer products, to challenge each other’s business strategies, and to adopt sustainable initiatives that will significantly alter healthcare’s environmental impact.