Green Procurement Case Study
Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) has achieved great success in changing the procurement and marketing practices of two of the largest general purchasing organizations for the health care industry, Broadlane and Premier, Inc.. Both companies have aggressively committed to buying products that meet a higher environmental performance standard without compromising service and quality expectations. They seek to avoid products that contain harmful materials that accumulate in the environment and are known to cause adverse human health impacts such as mercury, lead, and vinyl chloride.
If one or two companies within a specific market sector start investing in cleaner products, other companies are often quick to follow suit. Now Consorta Inc. and Novation have joined Broadland and Premier, Inc. in a commitment to encourage their members to reduce the purchasing of medical products containing mercury, polyvinyl chloride and the chemical plasticizer DEHP. These four major purchasing organizations buy supplies for more than 70% of all health care facilities, representing over $30 billion in medical purchasing power according to Health Care Without Harm. The health care market will respond to this demand making it more profitable to produce environmentally safe products.
In addition to strengthening the environmental performance requirements of their supplier’s purchasing contracts, Broadlane also informs its customers about the environmental attributes of the products sold in their catalogue by disclosing which productsare free from the following ingredients:
In addition, Broadlane indicates which products:
For more information, visit the websites for Broadlane and Premier Inc.