We partner with other public agencies to advance climate friendly purchasing efforts through the West Coast Climate and Materials Management Forum.
Climate Impacts of Purchasing
At Alameda County, we understand that our climate footprint comes from both our day to day operations, as well as from the provision of goods and services required to keep our operations running. These types of indirect purchasing emissions can occur as far back as resource extraction within the supply chain and include all emissions through production and transport up to the point of County purchase. As a large purchaser, Alameda County can take actions to influence suppliers across the entire supply chain for the better.
Reports on Climate Impacts of Purchasing
Supply Chain Sustainability Report (PDF - 2583kb) *
In order to understand our impact, and our influence, we contracted with Good Company to perform an analysis to identify the greatest areas of opportunity to address the climate and health impact related to our purchasing.
A growing number of public agencies and higher education institutions are performing supply chain greenhouse gas emissions inventories to identify and manage these emissions. In order to learn from these findings, and inform other public agencies who lack resources to perform their own emissions inventory, the West Coast Climate and Materials Management Forum convened a research project to perform a meta-analysis of supply chain inventories that were available in the public domain. This project was managed by Alameda County with funding support from StopWaste, a public agency responsible for reducing waste in Alameda County, CA.
Climate Friendly Purchasing Toolkit
Many organizations are looking at how they can leverage their purchasing power to reduce their climate impacts. Alameda County participated in a collaborative project convened by the West Coast Climate and Materials Management Forum to develop the Climate Friendly Purchasing Toolkit . This toolkit provides specific tools, strategies and case studies for targeting and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through institutional purchasing.
Documents
- Supply Chain Sustainability Report (PDF - 2583kb) *
- West Coast Climate Forum Trends Analysis (PDF - 11.5MB) *