"The Current State of Green Procurement Trends within Higher Education" found that 24 percent of the institutions responding have green procurement policies in place, but an additional 48 percent say they will enact a green procurement policy within a year.

"Green procurement is a critical year away from leaving the planning phase and becoming actionable,” says Brian Yeoman, NAEP’s director of sustainable leadership, in a news release. “This survey provides a valuable starting point for replicable efforts in the future and reveals the growing convergence of procurement and sustainability best practices within higher education."

The survey solicited responses from procurement professionals at more than 100 colleges and universities.

Respondents said that the most significant reasons for pursuing sustainability initiatives are “doing the right thing” (86 percent); reducing carbon (74 percent); reducing consumption (70 percent); improving the institution’s image (70 percent); and reducing costs (58 percent). The product categories most often included in a green procurement system, according to the survey, are paper products (86 percent); office supplies (73 percent); energy (66 percent); and computers (53 percent).

The most commonly included service categories are recycling (83 percent); cleaning (73 percent); fleet services (37 percent); food services (37 percent); and landscaping (34 percent). Other categories mentioned include pest control, transportation, facilities services, vending, construction and lab equipment.

In the survey’s executive summary, the NAEP notes that the predominant focus on recycling is not surprising, but it questions whether colleges and universities should concentrate their green efforts on other areas.

“Compared (with) the other needs, is recycling really the place to focus most?” the executive summary states.

For instance, it notes that one-third of carbon emissions on a campus are attributed to transportation.

The survey also found that procurement systems at most universities are not yet up to the job of acquiring and tracking green products and services.

Sixty-one percent of institutions responding to the survey had no idea where green money was being spent. Nearly two thirds of the systems cannot identify green vendors and 5 out of 6 cannot identify green products. Fifty-one percent of the respondents cannot measure any green procurement initiatives.

“Clearly the infrastructure to support green procurement is in need of substantive improvement,” the executive summary states.

The NAEP survey was sponsored by SciQuest, an e-procurement company.

• $160,000: The amount of yearly energy savings that can be achieved at an energy-efficient 4,000-student school district.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Guide to Financing Energy-Smart Schools

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