Take control of purchasing policy

Find out what you can save
Some public sector institutions do not take energy efficiency into account in their purchasing polices. Others do, but do not stick to the policies.

It's possible to save both money and energy by factoring energy efficiency into purchasing policy. Experience shows that most public sector workplaces can reduce their energy consumption by 15% – with energy efficient purchasing achieving some of these savings.

Danish municipalities can work out how much they can save by using a 'Potential Savings Calculator' (only available in Danish), but it is also suitable for use by government and regional authorities.

3 good tips
Make sure that:

• You have a purchasing policy, and purchasing staff know about it.
• Requirements on product energy efficiency are incorporated in the purchasing policy.
• Purchasing staff consider the total costs – i.e. the total cost of purchasing and operating a product – and not simply the cheapest purchase price when selecting an offer.

What a purchasing policy should include
A good idea is to formulate energy efficiency requirements for products in the purchasing policy. It can be expensive in the long term if your purchasing staff only base their buying decisions on the cheapest price. In many situations, the purchase price of computers may not be that different, but you can save over EUR 130 on your electricity bill over a computer's lifetime by buying energy efficiently.

For this reason, the purchasing policy should emphasize to the staff responsible that they should evaluate the total costs before placing an order. Once total costs are taken into account, it will often pay to choose energy efficient products.

Purchasers in Denmark can use the Trust's Total Price Calculator (only in Danish).

Spread the news
A purchasing policy that staff know nothing about is not worth having. That's why it's important that managers communicate the purchasing policy to all relevant departments and members of staff – from IT purchasers, to janitors who buy new light bulbs.

Ways of spreading the news:

• Hold a meeting with purchasing staff at which you tell them about the purchasing policy, and give them a physical copy of the document.
• Circulate the purchasing policy to members of staff responsible for purchasing, and ask them to remember to use it.
• Let purchasers know where they can get help, for example by using the Trust's Total Price Calculator (only in Danish), and the Purchasing Guidelines.
• Follow-up to make sure the purchasing policy is being implemented in all parts of the organisation. If you personally don't have time to do this, then make someone responsible for this task.

Practical help with follow-up
The Trust offers several tools that can help you follow up on how your purchasing policy is working.

• Status analysis
  A Status Check (only in Danish) helps municipalities identify how they are working with energy efficient purchasing in professional terms, and what improvements they can make.
• View electricity consumption (Se Elforbrug)
  View Electricity Consumption as an efficient tool for use by public sector institutions and private companies for monitoring and analysing electricity consumption.
• Purchasing staff survey
  The Purchasing Staff Survey (only in Danish) is an online questionnaire which can be used to identify the attitudes of decentralised purchasing staff to, and their experience with, energy efficient purchasing.

Special situations

• Government
  The Danish government has special purchasing regulations, with energy efficiency already included in the requirements. See the regulations here (only in Danish)
• Municipalities
  Many Danish Municipalities use the UN Agenda 21 which lays down environmental targets for the 21st century. Municipalities with an Agenda 21 can use its targets to shape their purchasing policies. In many case, however, agendas will require updating so they contain requirements on energy efficiency.
  > Read more about Agenda 21 here