Environmentally Preferred Purchasing

A nurse at Hermano Pedro Obras Sociales in Guatemala prepares supplies for new patients. St. Vincent’s HealthCare, part of Ascension Jacksonville in Florida, donated an ultrasound unit to the hospital.

Ascension facilities contract through Ascension Global Missions with MedSurplus Alliance to facilitate beneficial donations of furnishings and medical equipment to recipients around the world. The program was deployed in FY17 at St. Vincent’s HealthCare in Ascension Jacksonville and St. Mary’s Healthcare in Amsterdam, New York. Providence Hospital, part of Ascension Gulf Coast in Mobile, Alabama, donated unused furniture and hospital equipment to Goodwill and Mission of Hope.

Four sustainability questions have been added to Requests for Information (RFIs) and Requests for Proposals (RFPs) issued by The Resource Group to identify vendors that have green business practices. This is an effective way to identify aligned values for companies with which Ascension would like to partner.

The Resource Group is working with Ascension Information Systems (AIS) using PeopleSoft tools to designate green products already on contract. As an example, The Environmental Stewardship Program and The Resource Group are developing a pilot project with Staples to identify green products already on the contract formulary in order to provide sustainability information to associates purchasing office supplies. In the first six months of 2017, Staples reported 66 percent of ink and laser printer cartridges, 58 percent of janitorial paper and 73 percent of filing purchases by Ascension represented products with green attributes. Additional examples of green products on contract are Medline recycled plastic bed pans as well as slippers from Principle Business Enterprises, a woman-owned business, made with recycled fibers.

The environmental footprint of packaging and shipping is minimized with alternative packaging materials including trays made from recycled ocean plastic content; mushroom-based packaging filler material; and efficient shipping methods such as EPA SmartWay Transport used by Ascension suppliers such as Dell, Staples, Grainger, Herman Miller and AGI.