•  Leading businesses are investing significant resources in assessing their purchasing practices for sustainability attributes. They are looking both at the goods and materials they procure and the businesses from whom they buy. Since there are so many possible environmental and social impacts that my come into play, smart businesses first conduct a "materiality" assessment to see which of these issues rise to a priority level. The results are different for every company, of course, but fortunately there are similarities within industries that might lead to industry-focused solutions.

• The U.S. Federal government, through the General Services Administration (GSA), continues to implement the intent of Executive Order 13514, which calls on federal agencies to set and meet sustainability guidelines in many areas, including purchasing. The GSA oversees over US$500bn in purchases annually, so this task is both herculean and important. GSA representatives have stressed that they don't want to create a parallel program to private industry; rather, they would like to help craft programs that are broadly applicable and also cull best practices from the private sector.
• Because it's rarely clear exactly what constitutes a sustainable good or service, many standards-setting organizations are working diligently to create roadmaps and guidelines for institutional purchases to use in developing their strategies and tools to use in implementing their initiatives and measuring effects. Chief among these efforts is the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (www.purchasingcouncil.org), a membership organization that now has 80 companies representing over US$100bn in annual purchases on board to road test its Guidance for Leadership in Sustainable Purchasing v. 1.0. This document provides category-level guidance in eight sectors, focused on minimizing environmental and social impacts in goods and services purchases. Future iterations will be more comprehensive and, eventually, there will be a rating system for purchasing organizations.

Sustainable purchasing, at its most basic, is very simple: procure environmentally-friendly goods and services from suppliers who are responsible environmental, community and workforce stewards. Of course, doing so at a cost that fits into a viable business model is a real challenge for any company with a global supply chain. Knowing what to buy requires guidance that is still under development and knowing from whom to buy requires transparency and earnest due diligence. But just because it's a challenge does not mean it should be deferred - there's real money to be saved, environmental impacts to lessen and lives to improve.