UC receives Leadership in Greener Purchasing Award for Public University Sector from Office Depot
July 10, 2017 •
(From left): Jennifer Jimenez, National Account Manager Public Sector, Office Depot; Justin Sullivan, Director of Strategic Sourcing, UCOP; Lesley Clark, Senior Commodity Manager, UCOP; Dianne Yoder, Associate Director of Professional Services, UCOP; William Cooper, Associate Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer, UCOP
Reflecting its commitment to sustainability, UC has received a “Leadership in Greener Purchasing Award for Public University Sector” from Office Depot.
Office Depot annually assesses spend patterns across their largest customers and UC was named an award winner for its “green spending,” along with 19 other public higher education organizations. In recent years, UC Procurement has made enormous strides in incorporating sustainability into our systemwide procurement practices, aligning the university’s purchasing with our larger goals of becoming carbon neutral, generating zero waste and drastically reducing water consumption.
“This shift in green spend was driven significantly by our efforts to move to 100 percent post-consumer waste (PCW) paper,” said UC Procurement Senior Commodity Manager Lesley Clark, who managed the Office Depot systemwide contract until recently. She attributed UC’s success at growing its “green spend” to a systemwide commitment. “Stakeholders across UC wanted to get to a better place with paper and we’d established 30 percent PCW paper as competitively priced in our contracts. We had a choice next to either drive UC towards 50 percent or 100 percent PCW, so we shot for the more aggressive goal of 100 percent PCW product.”
UC Procurement followed up that decision by successfully negotiating pricing so that the shift to 100 percent PCW paper was cost neutral (compared to 30 percent PCW), generating a huge win for sustainable procurement and an award from Office Depot.
Be on the lookout for 100 percent PCW paper arriving at UCOP soon.
For more information on the Office Depot contract, please contact Jeremy.Meadows@ucop.edu. For general questions on sustainable procurement, contact Stephanie.Lopez@ucop.edu.
