How eProcurement Can Save Our Planet – and Us!

At the end of this month, representatives from 200 countries will attend the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference with the goal of preventing “dangerous” human interference with the climate system.

In the meantime, a U.N.-backed report just released ahead of the conference, indicates that in 2030 the U.S. is projected to drill for more oil and gas than at any point in its history. Same with Russia and Saudi Arabia.

This underscores the enormous environmental benefit that eProcurement – conducting bidding and purchasing via the internet – can have in reducing the carbon footprint left by the huge Procurement machine that drives the infrastructure of communities in every inch of the U.S.

One story that really hits home was about an agency in Northern California that only accepted paper bids. In snow, hail and sleet, vendors would drive to the agency and stand in line, no matter the weather, to submit a bid. This one example tells all in what eProcurement saves us from:

• gas consumption, vehicle emissions, road deterioration
• paper waste as well as fax machines, copiers that guzzle toners and ink, labels and so on
• employee time photocopying and collating reams of documents, driving to the agency and waiting in line.
• liability that comes with employees driving in bad weather

There’s more. By law, bids are required to be stored and eventually shredded. At agencies throughout the country, there are entire rooms full of boxes packed with paper bids.  eProcurement eliminates the cost of:

• storage facilities
• power consumption for air conditioning and electricity
• shredding and disposal of old documents done by a third party and involving more driving and equipment.

The amount of paper used by the procurement industry is mind-boggling.  An internal study conducted by PlanetBids in 2019 found that moving government procurement processes onto PB System™ over the prior two decades helped save over 250,000 trees from being cut down. eProcurement reduces deforestation.

Construction solicitations from Renewable Water Resources (ReWa) in South Carolina averaged 1,000 to 2,000 pages, and bidders submitted large paper bundles as responses.

“That’s a lot of paper being used by both parties!” says Stephanie Selman, ReWa’s Senior Purchasing Agent, who automated the agency’s processes by signing up for PlanetBids’ Vendor Management, Bid Management and Business Certification modules, all of which require reams upon reams of paper.

“The amount of paper used in the process was not supportive of our sustainability goals, something that is very important to our organization,” says Muhammed Abdullah, Senior Director of the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Texas, which also uses the Vendor Management and Bid Management modules.

There is a certain glee in the voice of Jana Vargas when she talks about one of the first things she did when she was hired to head procurement and contract services for the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, which has 16,000 vendors: “They were mailing out postcards! I had to get them to automate.”  When she took the airport’s procurement processes online, the airport saved on:

• Paper, labels, stamps, and mailing
• Managing paper lists of notified vendors, addenda, copiers/fax and more mail
• Proposal paper and binders, clips, thumb drives, vendor driving (vehicle emissions, road impact, congestion)
• Bid storage facility, air, electricity, shredding and disposal

There is also the matter of human resources – the tremendous number of staff hours that are needed for all of the above.

What eProcurement does not do is eliminate jobs; it streamlines them and gives procurement professionals a rare commodity – time to think and be strategic.

With eProcurement, everything is managed and stored on the invisible cloud. Here’s what an intelligent eProcurement system can do online:

• Vendor registration, providing real-time verification of provided information (certifications and licenses), advanced searches, reports, and broadcast messages.
• Issue, monitor, conduct evaluations and award formal and informal bids – i.e., bid management.
• Agencies / organizations can manage Small Business Enterprise, Minority, Diversity, and other certification programs and generate customizable reports in seconds.
• Store existing and past contract history in an intuitive contract management system that is easy to use, searchable 24/7 and automated
• Make sure that insurance certificates are renewed before expiration
• Facilitate the evaluation of bidders and identify the best proposal with evaluation being done independently and electronically

For those who want to know more about how to completely eliminate paper from the procurement process, whether you're on the agency side or a vendor, contact PlanetBids to learn about our complete eProcurement system.