Do you remember the days when the toner for your printer would run low and shaking the container almost always resulted in getting you and everything else around you covered with black soot that would not come off?

A common sourcing event in the office supplies space is that of toner cartridges for laser printers. The majority of toner sold is made from petroleum based products. Another common practice when sourcing toner is to source recycled toner cartridges. We are all aware that recycling is a good thing.

There is a less expensive and greener alternative today that not many companies are considering yet. That is the use of toner derived from soybean oil. In fact, soy based toner can be as much as 20% less expensive than traditional toner that is based on petroleum products. Recycled petroleum based toners are still less expensive than new soy cartridges. Another benefit to soy based toner is that paper printed with soy based toner is also easier and less costly to recycle.

A very simple four step process for adding soy based toner to your next e-negottiioan event is as follows.

1. Add a question to your RFI as to whether or not your prospective or incumbent suppliers carry soy based toner products.
2. Include a line item in your event for an identical specification of soy based toner for each petroleum based line item.
3. Ask for pre event samples of soy based toner.
4. Test the toner sample for volume and print quality.

The above process may also allow you to evaluate companies you wish to do business with in the future that are more flexible and support your environmental social responsibility initiatives by offering these types of green alternatives.

This simple process supports the reduction of petroleum based products, supports the environment and may in fact save you some money. Best of luck.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Deloitte /Forbes Insights survey shows some results that should concern us all.

I was listening to the radio today and heard that a local supermarket chain would be closing some stores. The number and location of the stores was not mentioned as the news was relatively fresh. The reasoning surmised by the reporter was that this was a response to the current economic condition as a way to reduce losses and shore up earnings.

As a manager, this author has never agreed with this type of response to tough times. It is typically taught MBA management style ands seems like the only response that senior management ever has to reducing costs and improving earnings.

In support of my opinion (and it is just that, My Opinion) a snap shot of the aforementioned survey was published in the Thursday April 23rd USA TODAY MONEY Section. The results are interesting. The research was conducted January 8th through January 30th of this year amongst 326 senior business leaders and human resource executives as to the top workplace changes to reduce costs. The top changes were as follows.

1. Restructuring Jobs 52%
2. Headcount Reduction 39%
3. Bonus Reduction 35%
4. Hiring Part time Employees 31%
5. Promoting Early Retirement 28%

During this earnings season, these five categories will be rolled out regularly to justify losses and answer queries as to what companies plan to do in order to improve earnings over the balance of the year. Excuses, excuses!

It?s interesting to me that reduction in cost of goods or procurement related expenses is not mentioned as a top initiative. It is entirely possible to reduce costs and expenses immediately that will result in earnings improvements of up to 100%. I have posted on this subject a number of times. When cost of goods exceeds 70% and suppliers are looking for new business opportunities it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out where to focus their energy. We will be glad to prove this to any company that wants to retain employees and still improve earnings.

We appreciate and look forward to your comments.

Ron Southard

Plastic bag manufacturers announce long range recycled content plan.

I was reading April 21st article in USA TODAY by Bruce Horovitz titled Plastic Bag makers get into recycling. In the article a quote from the Earth Day Network surprised me. Kathleen Rogers the President of Earth Day Network called the announcement annoying and transparent. She went on to say that the death knell has sounded for plastic bags and the manufacturers are just trying to continue to make a bad thing. Ouch!

These comments seem like politics as usual to this author. Our company is very focused on safety and environmental standard adherence in the supply chain. We well understand the waste created by non recyclable or disposable bags. We also understand that baby steps are necessary to progress. In this case the manufacturers are taking some. Is it enough? Probably not. If it is not enough, manufacturers will be forced sooner rather than later to do more. In the meantime, let?s applaud any movement and hold them accountable to at least what they are committing to. For those companies that want to do more, they can stop purchasing plastic bags and offer reusable bags at a reasonable cost. For consumers that care, they can stop using plastic bags in favor reusable bags.

In the present economy, for a company to offer to spend a significant amount of money to reengineer the products to the benefit of the environment is not such a bad thing.

As always, we look forward to and appreciate your comments.

These business structures have been around for a long time. Many have evolved to use cutting edge e- procurement tools. Do their retailers also benefit from their use of these tools in order to reduce their net landed costs in every way possible?

These types of organization can go by many different names such as wholesaler, collective buyer, consortium, cooperative, share groups and more. They all have one thing in common. They consolidate purchasing volumes for a wide array of groups that may have very similar business structures, but for the savvy consortium can also be wildly different.

In the retail vertical, companies may actually belong to several different buying groups because their primary group does not offer expertise in a certain area.

Consortiums need to evolve and also focus on a mixed market where it makes sense. In general consortiums tend to be vertically focused such as a drug industry consortium with the members generally representing the drug industry only. However some consortiums are beginning to market them selves outside of the vertical to retailers or other companies who want to take advantage of expertise that the consortium possesses in the categories that are common across more than their own vertical and offer increased volumes. An example might be drug stores sourcing very similar products that health care organizations like hospitals source.

Today?s advanced e-procurement tools make it much easier to accomplish collective buying and aggregating outside of a consortiums initial area of expertise. Large and small retailers alike now have the capability of viewing a much broader universe of suppliers and other companies while also coordinating and participating in collaborative events from hundreds if not thousands of miles away. Suppliers now have an opportunity to earn business they could never compete for in the past.

Retailers should ask their collective buyers how they plan to make the use of these tools available to them and what they have to offer in terms of introductions to other companies for increased volume.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Should this be a major consideration of retailers as they source materials for new and modeled brick and mortar locations?

Wikipedia tells us that the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction. Since its inception in 1998, LEED has grown to encompass more than 14,000 projects in 50 U.S. States and 30 countries covering 1.062 billion square feet (99 km²) of development area.] The hallmark of LEED is that it is an open and transparent process where the technical criteria proposed by the LEED committees are publicly reviewed for approval by the more than 10,000 membership organizations that currently constitute the USGBC.

Green building is A sustainable building, or green building is an outcome of a design which focuses on increasing the efficiency of resource use such as energy, water and materials which result in reducing buildings impact on human health and the environment during the building’s lifecycle.

It is this author?s belief that best practices in sourcing has to include holding general and sub contractors accountable to LEED certification among other standards in order to support the efforts of retail and other companies to reduce their carbon footprint and stakeholder safety. LEED is one of over forty certifications that over 300,000 suppliers are held accountable to in the SafeSourceIt? supplier database. What is your e-negotiation provider doing to support green sourcing?

We appreciate and look forward to your comments.

If a frog swims in your farm pond does it mean your produce contains e-coli?

I was recently reading an article about central coast California growers that have been shooting and poisoning wildlife because over three years ago, wild pigs were linked to a deadly e-coli outbreak of California spinach.

I?m not sure how one goes about testing wild animals or which ones to test in order to determine that they are responsible for contaminating a food product. I wonder if they get tested for rabies at the same time.

The fish and game department released results of that testing this month that indicates that wild life is not the problem many thought it was and that the extreme measures mentioned above are not necessary.

Evidently the spinich that sickened thousands and killed three was grown on a cattle ranch east of Salinas California. This obviously begs the question as to whether or not the cattle were tested or if the farmers are shooting their cattle.

So let?s hope that our underfunded government organizations leave the frogs, deer, birds and wild pigs are to their foraging and we invest our underfunded and understaffed resources in a more logical pursuit of food safety.

While we are talking about wild pigs, let?s also hope that the federal government stops using their relatives (domestic pigs) in crash testing for military vehicle safety.

Sometimes daily events just make you wonder.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
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An international group of professionals has found that the FDA?s claim that BPA found in food containers and other household products is safe to be unreliable and have rejected the findings.

As such, procurement professionals should refresh their knowledge relative to purchasing products that contain Bisphenol A.

?Bisphenol A? is a toxic plastics chemical that has inherent risks associated with the human consumption of the product. The following is taken from an excellent organization the Environmental Working Group or EWG?s website.

The mission of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) is to use the power of public information, to protect public health and the environment. EWG is a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization, founded in 1993 by Ken Cook and Richard Wiles.

Our testing of canned foods found that BPA leaches from the liner into the food itself. Sensitive groups such as kids and pregnant women should limit canned food consumption. Beverages appear to contain less BPA residues, while canned pasta and soups contain the highest levels. Rinsing canned fruit or vegetables with water prior to heating and serving could lessen BPA ingestion.

BPA is found in polycarbonate plastic food containers often marked on the bottom with the letters “PC” recycling label #7. Not all #7 labeled products are polycarbonate but this is a reasonable guideline for a category of plastics to avoid. Polycarbonate plastics are rigid and transparent and used for sippy cups, baby bottles, food storage, and water bottles. Some polycarbonate water bottles are marketed as ‘non-leaching’ for minimizing plastic taste or odor, however there is still a possibility that trace amounts of BPA will migrate from these containers, particularly if used to heat liquids.

Risk levels associated with the consumption of BPA can be viewed at the EWG website.

This author recommends that when buying any of the products listed above that procurement professionals ask their suppliers the specific question; do the containers for these products contain BPA? If so, do you have the same product for the same price in container that does not contain BPA?

We appreciate and look forward to your comments

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) there are more than 160 foods that can cause allergic reactions in people with food allergies, the law identifies the eight most common allergenic foods. These foods account for 90 percent of food allergic reactions, and are the food sources from which many other ingredients are derived. Some of these products have been in the news recently for other issues in the food safety area.

The law requires that the following eight foods be indentified as allergenic.

Milk
Eggs
Fish
Crustacean shellfish
Tree nuts
Peanuts
Wheat
Soybeans

These eight foods, and any ingredient that contains protein derived from one or more of them, are designated as “major food allergens” by the law.

The law also requires that food labels identify the food source of all major food allergens. It must be included in one of two ways. The name of the food source of a major food allergen must appear in parentheses following the name of the ingredient. By example, “lecithin (soy),” “flour (wheat),” and “whey (milk)? or immediately after or next to the list of ingredients in a “contains” statement. By example, “Contains Wheat, Milk, and Soy.”

The symptoms of food allergies can appear within a few minutes or up to two hours after a person has eaten the food to which he or she is allergic. Some of these symptoms can be similar to food poisoning or food born illness symptoms.

Hives
Flushed skin or rash
Tingling or itchy sensation in the mouth
Face, tongue, or lip swelling
Vomiting and/or diarrhea
Abdominal cramps
Coughing or wheezing
Dizziness and/or lightheadedness
Swelling of the throat and vocal cords
Difficulty breathing
Loss of consciousness

It?s important to read the food labeling if you are sensitive to these or other food groups and avoid those allergens in question.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) there are more than 160 foods that can cause allergic reactions in people with food allergies, the law identifies the eight most common allergenic foods. These foods account for 90 percent of food allergic reactions, and are the food sources from which many other ingredients are derived. Some of these products have been in the news recently for other issues in the food safety area.

The law requires that the following eight foods be indentified as allergenic.

Milk
Eggs
Fish
Crustacean shellfish
Tree nuts
Peanuts
Wheat
Soybeans

These eight foods, and any ingredient that contains protein derived from one or more of them, are designated as “major food allergens” by the law.

The law also requires that food labels identify the food source of all major food allergens. It must be included in one of two ways. The name of the food source of a major food allergen must appear in parentheses following the name of the ingredient. By example, “lecithin (soy),” “flour (wheat),” and “whey (milk)” or immediately after or next to the list of ingredients in a “contains” statement. By example, “Contains Wheat, Milk, and Soy.”

The symptoms of food allergies can appear within a few minutes or up to two hours after a person has eaten the food to which he or she is allergic. Some of these symptoms can be similar to food poisoning or food born illness symptoms.

Hives
Flushed skin or rash
Tingling or itchy sensation in the mouth
Face, tongue, or lip swelling
Vomiting and/or diarrhea
Abdominal cramps
Coughing or wheezing
Dizziness and/or lightheadedness
Swelling of the throat and vocal cords
Difficulty breathing
Loss of consciousness

It’s important to read the food labeling if you are sensitive to these or other food groups and avoid those allergens in question.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments

A friend of mine from japan sent me two articles this past week relative to Mars the owner of the Mars, M&M and Snickers brands behavior in sourcing their cocoa and their responsibility to be socially aware and environmentally friendly.

No one would blame food companies during the worst global economy in over 75 years if they tried to cut corners and buy less expensive goods and services.

This author has posted several times on the emerging standard of TBL. For those of you that are not aware of it, please read on and ask yourself what your company is doing in this area. A Mars spokesperson goes on to say that their employees and consumers expect them to do the right thing. So do the stake holders in all companies. Mars gives us a great view of how the business world can be.

The triple bottom line (or “TBL”, “3BL”, or “people, planet, profit”) captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success: economic, ecological and social. With the ratification of the United Nations and ICLEI TBL standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007, this became the dominant approach to public sector full cost accounting. Similar UN standards apply to natural capital and human capital measurement to assist in measurements required by TBL, e.g. the eco Budget standard for reporting ecological footprint.

In the private sector, a commitment to corporate social responsibility implies a commitment to some form of TBL reporting. This is distinct from the more limited changes required to deal only with ecological issues.

Ask how your sourcing partners can help you in this process.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.