INFORMATION FOR SUPPLIERS

Strategic Sourcing & Environmentally Preferable Purchasing

Summary: Learn about UC's Strategic Sourcing initiative.

Strategic Sourcing

Strategic Sourcing is a systemwide procurement strategy. It takes advantage of the combined buying power of 10 UC campuses and their affiliates to cut costs for common goods and services. This approach provides better pricing, quality, and overall service.

Our goal is to leverage the UC System buying power to achieve lower costs of purchasing goods and services without compromising quality or service.

How it works: For each commodity, a team of purchasing professionals from each UC campus:

• Studies the expenditures, usage rate data, life-cycle costs, targeted savings, and other factors
• Combines the data from all campuses
• Creates solicitations and/or negotiations
• Awards and issues contracts to be used by all or multiple campuses

The initiative also strives to comply with UC Sustainability Policies and Best Practices by incorporating environmentally friendly products and services.

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP)

EPP is the procurement of items that have minimized or reduced environmental effects. The purpose of EPP is to give preference to environmentally preferred products whenever possible.

UCSD encourages its departments to consider the following when they are thinking about purchasing an item:

• Initial cost and maintenance costs
• Necessity at the time of purchase
• Energy efficiency, use of resources
• Recycled content
• Durability
• Manufacturing, packaging, and transportation
• Toxicity
• Disposal or reuse/ take-back programs

The University of California Office of the President has included EPP in its sustainable practices policy guidelines (PDF). These guidelines include goals and implementation procedures.