Purchasers role in reducing demand
Institutional purchasers have an important role to play in enabling their vendors to reduce GHG emissions resulting from paper-based contract deliverables. Governments must invest in technologies and infrastructure that allow for their vendors to transition away from traditional ways of doing business that can be emissions-intensive.
The purchasing organization can invest in online document management systems, cloud-based document storage solutions, electronic signature capabilities, or other electronic business strategies to reduce the need for paper deliverables. This is particularly important for contracts where paper deliverables, packaging and shipping are a significant source of emissions in their professional services supply chain GHG emissions profile.
These initiatives can have amplified impacts by supporting capacity-building of services vendors, especially small firms and community based organizations. Once these firms have adopted the technologies to service government contracts, they can use them with their other clients.