At the end of this November, 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 released ahead of the conference indicates that in 2030 the United States is projected to drill for more oil and gas than at any point in its history. The same was reported for Russia and Saudi Arabia.
This underscores the enormous environmental importance 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 United States.
It's a stark change from just a few short years ago, when agencies required all solicitations and responses to be submitted in person. Take one Northern California agency 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 describes just a few of the problems with traditional procurement methods:
- Gas consumption, vehicle emissions, road deterioration
- Paper waste
- Fax machines and copiers that guzzle toner, ink, and labels
- Employee time photocopying and collating reams of documents and driving to the agency and waiting in line
- Liability that comes with employees driving in bad weather
And 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, just sitting and waiting to be destroyed.
On the other hand, eProcurement eliminates the cost associated with:
- Storage facilities
- Power consumption for air conditioning and electricity
- Shredding and disposing 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 had helped save more than 250,000 trees from being cut down.
In other words, 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,” said Stephanie Selman, ReWa’s Senior Purchasing Agent.
Selman helped ReWa automate the agency’s processes by adopting PlanetBids’ Vendor Management, Bid Management, and Business Certification modules, all of which eliminate the need for 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,” said Muhammed Abdullah, Senior Director of the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Texas, which also uses the Vendor Management and Bid Management modules.
Jana Vargas, Head of Procurement and Contract Services for the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, spoke about one of the first things she did when she was hired to head the agency and its 16,000 vendors
“They were mailing out postcards! I had to get them to automate," she said, adding that 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;
- And more!
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. Instead, 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 cloud, making it safe and secure while being easily accessible for your team.
Here’s what an intelligent eProcurement system can do online:
- Vendor Management – Register and verify vendor certifications and licenses in real time, and perform advanced searches and reports, and send communications to vendors.
- Bid Management – Issue, monitor, conduct bid evaluations and award formal and informal bids.
- Business Certification – Manage Small Business Enterprise, Minority, Diversity, and other certification programs and generate customizable reports in seconds.
- Contract Management – Store existing and past contract history for searchability and automated updating
- Insurance Management – Make sure that insurance certificates are renewed before expiration
- Project Evaluation – Facilitate the evaluation of bidders independently and electronically, and identify the best proposal.
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 contact PlanetBids today to learn about our complete eProcurement system.
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