Practical Application

1. Work with the Chief Procurement Officer to evaluate purchasing policies and practices.
2. Familiarize staff with the Department’s policy, participate in the annual BMS Green Challenge for Waste or Purchasing, and join programs such as EPA’s WasteWise (see & Resources: Federal Green Challenge).
3. Review the most commonly purchased categories of materials to assess the status of the program. Review and document existing resource conservation strategies and compliance with federal performance.
4. Assign teams to conduct one-day or week-long audits of site’s waste streams to establish building waste baselines. Sort and measure total waste by volume or weight within each Follow EPA or Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) guidelines for the audit and use logging spreadsheets.