Scope
This information sheet presents the sustainable purchasing criteria and recommendations applicable to office supplies, including:
- glues and adhesives
- notepads and notebooks
- envelopes
- portfolios
- writing materials
- filing material (filing cabinets, hanging file folders, document trays, archive boxes, etc.)
- small, non-electrical equipment (rulers, punches, staplers, etc.)
Related information sheet(s)
The following ECPAR sheet(s) may provide complementary information on activities in the office supplies sector:
- Paper products
This information sheet was developed by life cycle assessment experts Quantis Canada and Groupe AGÉCO. The content was edited by the CIRAIG, RECYC-QUÉBEC and ECPAR members. It is important to note that similar information sheets, including those produced by Acheteur Durable, were taken into consideration. See the References section for further details.
Did you know
- In 2008, the recovery rate of paper and cardboard was only 41% in Québec’s industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) sector
- According to Statistics Canada, in 2013, office supply and stationary store revenues topped $2.5B in Québec
- ;The Direction générale des acquisitions du Québec provides a comprehensive catalogue of eco-responsible office supplies
1Source: Statistics Canada. Table 080-0020: Retail trade, sales by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), monthly (dollars X 1,000), CANSIM
Best practices
Before considering sustainable development criteria to select office supplies, requisitioners and purchasing agents can reduce the impacts of their procurement by adopting a series of best practices to:
- Rethink the need
- Provide a framework for the context of use
- Consider the 3R-R approach
Rethink the need
- Office supplies have short service lives. It is therefore best to limit source consumption in order to curb the impacts throughout the products’ life cycles.
- Studies have shown that a vast selection of products incites final users to order more. In other words, when faced with many choices, users tend to consume more than they need.
- An effective strategy is to preselect certain items and develop an internal catalogue available on the intranet with periodic centralisation.
- To curb consumption, limit the product offer in the catalogue:
i. Delete items that are not ordered on a regular basis (e.g. fewer than 10 orders/year)
ii. Offer the same items to all departments and reduce diversity (e.g. notepad colours)
- Substitute certain items:
i. Offer plastic (rather than metal) coil binding, which is simple to remove and reuse
ii. Use regular pens instead of markers
iii. Use refillable pens
Provide the framework for the context of use
- Raise awareness of the best practices to reduce office supply consumption among users by:
i. Working directly on a computer to limit paper consumption
ii. Using supplies until the end of their service lives
iii. Systematically refilling refillable products
Consider the 3 R-R approach
Requisitioners and purchasing agents should rethink the need and consider the 3R-R approach—reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery—before making a purchase. The 3R-R approach hierarchizes the strategies to ensure ecological waste management. In the procurement phase, it is possible to make source reductions and foster the reuse of products before they are recovered or recycled.
Good 3R-R practices for office supplies include:
| The 3 R-R | |
|---|---|
Reduction |
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Reuse |
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Recycling and recovery |
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Economic issues
Cost overrun to purchase sustainable office supplies
While certain new eco-friendly products are more expensive to purchase, the prices are tending to decrease as compared to standard products.1
Running costs savings
The adoption of the best practices set out in this information sheet may lead to savings through the purchase of fewer supplies.
1 “When “green” options are first introduced, they are sometimes more expensive than conventional products. However, prices tend to decrease as more suppliers shift production to meet increased market demand.” (Source : BC Hydro (2014). Use Sustainable Office Supplies. Accessed 29/07/14 From https://www.bchydro.com/powersmart/business/small_medium_business/green_your_business/office_guide/1__Use_Sustainable_Office_Supplies.html)
“ ”Depending on the product, the price a of green alternative compared to its conventional counterpart will range from being slightly more expensive, » said Jesse Gibbs of The Green Office. “For instance, a remanufactured toner cartridge is greener than a new one since materials are being reused, and it costs significantly less. One hundred percent post-consumer recycled copy paper, another popular green product, will typically cost 10 to 25 percent more than paper with no recycled content.” ” (Source : Hart, T. (2010). Nonprofit Guide to Going Green. Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey, 425 p.)
Priority criteria
In the following table, the priority sustainable purchasing criteria for office supplies are listed in the first column. The criteria constitute priorities because they pertain to the most impactful environmental and social issues in the life cycles of the products.
The information that should be required from suppliers to demonstrate that their product(s) meet these criteria is listed in the second column.
For further details on the key sustainable development issues surrounding these products, see the Rationale and additional information section of this sheet.
Please note that all the criteria are of equal weighting. No one criterion is more important than another.
| Sustainable purchasing criteria | INFORMATION to be obtained from the supplier | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Overall product performance
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Certifications
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Recycled contentSelect products made from post-consumer recycled materials.
There are no universally accepted criteria for the minimum percentage of recycled content, and it is therefore best to require the highest possible rates.
For paper and cardboard products, the Direction générale des acquisitions du Québec (DGACQ) recommends recycled content percentages of between 10 and 100%.
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Certifications
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Local purchasesThe compliance of the following criteria with the regulations that apply to public bodies was not verified. Readers must carry out the necessary research.
In order to maximize the socioeconomic benefits of purchases and potentially reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by transport (for an equivalent mode), it is best to purchase local products.
There is no consensus on what constitutes local purchasing, but the following perspectives may be considered:
|
Point of manufacture | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Purchasing from social economy enterprise
|
Refer to the list of social economy enterprises in the Rationale and additional information section |
| Sustainable purchasing criteria | INFORMATION to be obtained from the supplier |
|---|---|
Paper products
Priority criteria
Post-consumer recycled fibre content (minimum 30%) or
Virgin fibres certified by a recognized sustainable forest management standard
Pour les produits de bois
|
See the ECPAR’s Paper products information sheet: FSC, SFI, PEFC certification |
| Sustainable purchasing criteria | INFORMATION to be obtained from the supplier |
|---|---|
Few adverse effect
|
Information on the type(s) of Material(s)
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Recyclability
|
| Sustainable purchasing criteria | INFORMATION to be obtained from the supplier |
|---|---|
Few adverse effects
|
Information on the chemical compounds and substances |
| sustainable purchasing criteria | INFORMATION to be obtained from the supplier |
|---|---|
Few adverse effects
|
Nature of the glue or base (adhesives) |
Additional criteria
The additional criteria allow taking into account issues that are important but not the most significant from the life cycle perspective. Part of a sustainable purchasing approach, these criteria are aimed at purchasing agents and requisitioners who want to take further steps in the consideration of sustainable development.
| Sustainable purchasing criteria | INFORMATION to be obtained from the supplier |
|---|---|
Refill system
|
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Sustainable packaging (whenever applicable)
|
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Life cycle
The following table describes the environmental (
) hot spots (critical aspects) issues in the life cycles of activities in the office supplies sector. It constitutes a summary analysis of the main environmental and social impacts.
) hot spots (critical aspects) issues in the life cycles of activities in the office supplies sector. It constitutes a summary analysis of the main environmental and social impacts.The determination of the hot spots is based on a literature review of life cycle analyses of the products considered here as well as figures from the ecoinvent database, which compiles environmental information on the life cycles of several thousand industrial products and processes.
| Description | Raw materials | Manufacturing | Distribution | Use | End of life |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
The acquisition of raw materials (resource extraction, fibres and other consumables) for product manufacturing generates approximately 75% of biodiversity and ecosystem impacts | Plant operations (energy, discharge, GHG emissions) generate almost 15% of impacts | GHG emissions (transport) and packaging generate impacts | Negligible impacts in this phase | The end-of-life management of products and their packaging generates approximately 15% of impacts (collection, recycling, landfilling) |
| Raw materials | transformation | distribution | use | end of life | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Description | Extraction | Manufacturing plant | Transport | Recovery transport, recycling and landfilling | |
| Contribution to issues | Very significant (75 %) | Significant (15 %) | Minor(1 %) | Minor (1 %) | Significant (15 %) |
| Explanation |
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List of social economy enterprises
coming soon
Certifications
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Cradle to Cradle (C2C)
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Möbius strip
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SFI certified chain of custory (x% certified forest content,x%certified sourcing,x% post consumer recycled) |
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 |
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FSC Mix (Mix and/or recycled fiber) |
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FSC 100% recycled |
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PEFC recycled |
