Companies have always struggled to make changes. I don?t know how many times I?ve heard someone say; become an agent of change? What the heck does that mean? Relative to becoming a green focused company or change agent without just being pegged as a green wash company may be the most difficult change to make. Not enough work has been done at the corporate level in order to provide the financial justification that becoming green can have on the company

Companies have always struggled to make changes. I don?t know how many times I?ve heard someone say; become an agent of change? What the heck does that mean? Relative to becoming a green focused company or change agent without just being pegged as a green wash company may be the most difficult change to make. Not enough work has been done at the corporate level in order to provide the financial justification that becoming green can have on the company.

There are several opportunities in the use of e-procurement tools to support and advance companies green footprint if well thought out. The first is to deploy your e-procurement tools using green technology, or asking your Software as a Service (SaaS) provider to run their service on energy efficient hardware that is certified with an energy star. Another opportunity is to move your internal procurement to a hosted tool which stores all inforamtion electronically and as such eliminates reams of paper. This helps to support our forests. Additionally, use your e-procurement provider?s document management system to store your manuals, and policies, in easy to access e-documents and eliminate the vast libraries of paper documents that sit on shelves largely unused today.

Make it easier to procure products or increase spend using e-procurement tools than traditional methodologies. Set up departmental competitions and reward teams for savings, improved quality, time savings etc. when using e-procurement tools.

Making the commitment to be green is difficult, it requires thought and support from executive management. Think through other ways to do your job that support reduction of our carbon footprint and share then with you manager. Everyone doing a little can add up to a lot.

I look forward to your comments.

Ron Southard