Week Three

This week revolved around similar tasks as the week prior, combing through the various goods and services purchased by the city in order to make an account of areas in which they could improve. By logging the data in an excel sheet I was able to organize the chart by category. I extracted the important information from the bidding site such as the contact information for the city, the project title, the scope of the services provided, as well as the various tags of the categories pertaining to the project. Professional services has shown to be a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions amongst public agencies. However because these professional services are specific to their given sector, I went back through the various bids in order to look at some of the goods associated with these services. From there, Mr. Bruskotter instructed me to make some quick mental notes on how we could make this product greener for the city.

While working on the project, Mr. Bruskotter invited me to sit in on a call with him with the Sustainability Department in Orange County. The City of Santa Monica has been one of Southern California’s leaders in sustainability in which has inspired many of the surrounding cities and counties to follow in their footsteps. The call consisted of Mr. Bruskotter sharing his knowledge with his colleagues from Orange County regarding the presentation he would be giving their department within the next week. From this call I learned more about some of the practices in which the Santa Monica implements into their purchasing decisions. By promoting the, “best value,” mindset, the city takes the green approach when economically feasible. By benchmarking these goods and services, Santa Monica looks to stay on the forefront of sustainability. 

Week Two

This week began the works. I came into the office knowing the baseline of the project, but I soon became aware of the operation of the office. He introduced me to the others in the office, working diligently on their own tasks. I worked alongside a fellow who was helping to draft the City's new Climate Action Plan, alongside the city's climate expert. While I met the other team members, I worked alongside Karl for the remainder of the day. I sat in on a call in which a team member from the Southern California Association of Governments inquired about greening their supply chain. From the conversation, it was easy to see that the office was following many of the green building standards, but they wanted to know more about the green business certification program that the city had recently installed.

After the phone call, we headed back to the office to discuss some of the starting points for the project. Mr. Bruskotter showed me a website called Planet Bids, where I then was assigned my first task of picking through the city's purchases in order to determine the professional services. From the summit, it became very clear to the people on the Sustainability Purchase Leadership Council that the public sector had particularly high greenhouse gas emissions in both the categories of construction services and professional services. Professional services are defined, "by low capital intensity, high knowledge intensity and a professionalized workforce." Some of these examples include legal, consulting, architectural, and financial firms. The city has looked into many of the other direct impacts of their purchases, but has not invested all of its research efforts into this particular sector. This is in part due to the fact that there was an up and coming framework to the new standards brought forth by National Science Foundation. I was delegated with the task of selecting relevant professional services for the project.

Week One

This week began the project for the summer. It was more of an informal meeting with Mr. Bruskotter at a local coffee shop in which we discussed the details of the project as well as some of the new knowledge he gained at Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council's Summit of 2016. He used the details of the summit to tie into the main objectives of the project. One of these objectives was to find green versions of the city's purchases. This would be done through the process of benchmarking. Benchmarking is the process comparing business procedures alongside the industry's best standards. Most of this research will be conducted through the program of Planet Bids. This takes into consideration the entirety of the supply chain from manufacturing to purchasing and all the processes in between.

At the conference, Mr. Bruskotter was informed about the new standards in which the USEPA is trying to encourage amongst the business sector. Upon further research, I found that these new recommendations only pertain to the purchasing categories of construction, custodial, electronics, grounds and landscaping, office and operations regarding fleet, shipping, and shop. Mr. Bruskotter also shared relevant information regarding the new sustainability standard presented by NSF. This sector specific solution regards the acronym of SEE and the 3C's. SEE stands for Social, Environmental, and Economic while the three C's are convergence, commitment and collaboration, and consensus. These sections have various types of prerequisites which take different factors of the business's key performance indicators. These are the measurement of a business' success.