Green Initiatives

The Procurement Division is committed to seeking opportunities to encourage environmentally friendly procurement. The City implemented an Environmentally Preferred Purchasing Policy (EPPP). The purpose of the policy is to prompt all City staff to make every effort to minimize the environmental impact when procuring goods and services for the City of San Antonio.

Policy Highlights

• Encourages City departments to lead by example.
• Prompts City employees to conduct all procurement activities in an energy- and resource-efficient manner.
• Requires departments to evaluate recycled or environmentally preferred products to determine if this alternative would be practical for use.
• Procurement Division provides departments with information to facilitate their evaluation and purchase of designated products.
• Procurement Division ensures that environmentally preferable products are designated in procurement documents whenever practicable.
• Procurement Division supports the purchase of recycled and environmentally preferred products.

Examples of Initiatives

• Ensure that environmentally preferable paper products, such as 35% post-consumer recycled content paper, is used when providing print services to City departments and require two-sided copies.
• Retrofit City buildings with energy-efficient lighting, heating, and air conditioning equipment.
• Require mowing contracts to include mulching.
• Develop procurement specifications to encourage the use of remanufactured toner cartridges for desktop printers, recycled paper products, and plastic bags.
• Conversion to hybrid vehicles under the Vehicle Fleet Environmental Acquisition Policy(PDF, 4MB).