When it comes to sustainability, resorts have often focused on specific areas, such as recycling and reducing paper usage. Little has been said about how purchasing can contribute to the overall effort, even though it has the potential to play a big role across all departments. And there are only a few steps needed to put that potential into action.

Whether your resort has an environmental team or not, there are many opportunities for purchasing individuals to make a sizeable impact in creating a more sustainable operation. Understanding what can be done to support the purchasing department in these efforts will assist in reaching new levels of sustainability.

For most businesses, this is new territory. There hasn’t been much research done regarding how purchasing departments can assist the organization implement sustainability efforts. There is also a lack of awareness about the support purchasing needs from the organization. Opening a conversation around this will help both purchasers and senior leaders alike understand how they can remove obstacles to achieving their sustainability goals.

Procurement staff are in a unique position to drive sustainability efforts. They have influence on a lot of different processes across the resort. In addition, centralized purchasing departments have the perspective to see the big picture of what the entire organization is purchasing, as well as see what specific goods and services each department is using. These factors provide an (as yet) untapped opportunity to drive benefits from choosing wisely when buying and transporting goods.

Setting up a sustainable purchasing program has its challenges, but the rewards far outweigh the effort required. In many cases, the costs of providing a good or service actually decreases, once all the life-cycle costs are taken into account.


Getting Into the Game
What is needed to support a purchasing department in targeting increased sustainability?

First, it takes commitment from senior leadership that sustainability is a key priority, on par with financial viability and safety. There must be at least one leader who stands up and says, “this is important,” and communicates that throughout the organization. When the senior leadership team communicates this priority to purchasing, the department will become more alert to finding sustainable opportunities.

Second, it is crucial to have someone in the purchasing department who champions sustainable purchasing. By sharing his or her enthusiasm for sustainability with the rest of the team, one person can encourage better choices on everything from the purchase of recycled paper to ensuring that environmental questions are incorporated into requests for proposals. It is critical to instill in procurement staff the value of making sustainable choices.

Third, a ski area must have the tools to assess the impact it is having on the environment, in order to track progress and celebrate successes. Implementing tools for benchmarking can be inexpensive; the modest capital investment will likely be cost-effective in the long run.

Benchmarking can be as simple as measuring fuel consumption, energy consumption, and the amount of paper consumed across the resort. If you are just starting down the path of sustainability, finding ways to measure your environmental impact is an excellent step.

Fourth, having a policy regarding sustainable purchasing is essential. Centralized purchasing teams, as well as decentralized purchasing or those using procurements cards, will find this useful. The policy will guide purchasing decisions by employees and also communicate to suppliers that sustainability is a priority.

Since sustainability is often a moving target, your sustainable purchasing policy can be treated as a work in progress. It may take several revisions to craft one that is useful but not constricting. When in doubt, err on the side of keeping it simple. At the very least, start by including sustainable purchasing guidelines in your current purchasing policy.

Examples of such guidelines include:

Consider the ecological footprint of a good or service. How can this be reduced through alternative processes or products?

All new appliances and equipment must be energy star approved.

When selecting a supplier, ask them to show a demonstrated commitment to sustainability.

Include the cradle-to-grave costs in assessment criteria (also known as total cost of ownership).


Getting Down to Business
What are the creative ways your ski area can be even more sustainable? What can we learn from other ski resorts?

In a sustainable organization, the purchasing department has to work closely with other stakeholders to devise ways to reduce the impact on the environment and instill sustainable operating procedures (while also getting the job done efficiently).

Small decisions can have a big impact. For example, buying appliances that make it easy to be sustainable is one simple way to achieve positive results. Have you ever watched someone struggling to make double-sided copies? After a couple of attempts, they wail in frustration and just hit the big green “GO” button. Including environmental weighting in the request for proposal (RFP) for the copier could lead to a better outcome. Better to pay a little more up front to save money, paper, and trash disposal later.

Purchasing managers are beginning to take the initiative. Jessica Velasquez, mountain purchasing manager for Mt. Hood Meadows, formed a “green team” to communicate easily across departments. The team brings ideas to the table once a month and, along with other departments, hashes out the pros and cons. This has led to working with various departments to improve sustainability. For example, the team is currently working with vendors to reduce packaging for a variety of items and has partnered with the fleet manager to install idling meters on the area’s snow cats.

Whistler Blackcomb has had a few success stories as well. Energy manager Allana Williams undertook a program to upgrade the lighting at Whistler Blackcomb to more efficient and environmentally-friendly bulbs. This required the cooperation of many departments, including retail, food and beverage, lift ops and electrical. By working closely with BC Hydro, lighting suppliers and the purchasing department, the area has switched out more than 3,000 light bulbs to more energy-efficient models and saved more than 444,000 kWh. With rebates from BC Hydro and the energy saved, the effort made financial sense, too. And it earned a 2012 PowerSmart Excellence Award from BC Hydro to boot.

Matt Hamilton, director of sustainability at Aspen Snowmass, echoes the need for good communication between purchasing and other departments. At Aspen, purchasing sits only a snowball’s throw from the sustainability team, and the two groups bounce ideas off each other. This has led to numerous successes for the teams.

Environmental and sustainability manager Ross Freeman has had great success at improving sustainability at Stevens Pass. Without a centralized purchasing department at Stevens, his job includes championing sustainable purchasing across all departments.

For example, by working with the facilities department, Freeman helped engineer a switch to garbage bags made of recycled plastic, manufactured in U.S., from regular bags imported from China. The new bags are both better for the environment and cheaper.

Freeman also advocates having purchasers work with vendors to reduce their combined environmental impact. One example: Stevens has become a demonstration project for its composting vendor. The area swapped out all disposables in food and beverage with approved compostable products and implemented full composting in all kitchens, all table-service venues, and 80 percent of other restaurants. This was all completed for the same cost as using disposables and trucking trash to the landfill. This outcome meets all the criteria of their triple bottom line of social, environmental and economic measures.


Weighing Costs and Benefits
Most sustainable initiatives, though, have a price tag attached to them. Some ski areas are willing to make investments to pursue sustainable options, but only up to a certain cost. When making the business case, combine both the financial and environmental benefits to give a project the best chance for approval. If you clearly state the costs and offsetting benefits, decision makers are more likely to do the right thing. Point out other benefits as well, such as marketing campaigns and good will in the community.

Sometimes it’s necessary to create a few quick wins first. Build on early successes to generate support for larger and more complex, capital-intensive projects.

A final thought: Energy usage consumes resources invisibly. But good energy management will have a larger, positive impact than, say, waste or packaging reduction programs. Who manages your energy usage, you or your customers? Automated building controls can be an effective first project.

One thing is certain: Embedding a culture of sustainability in your purchasing team will result in environmental, social and financial benefits many times over. So take the time to sell this notion to your senior leadership team. Develop (or be) a purchasing champion. Implement benchmarking tools, and create a sustainable purchasing policy. Focus on good communication and solid business cases, and you will embed sustainability throughout your resort.


Shelly Kidd (skidd@whistlerblackcomb.com) is a purchasing agent at Whistler Blackcomb and is pursuing her Supply Chain Management Professions (SCMP) Qualification through the Purchasing Management Association of Canada (PMAC).