Amherst College
OP-10: Purchased Goods

• Preferable criteria

• Kellco Green Clean H2O2 - Green Seal

• Focus Safe 2 Clean RTU-Quarts - EPA Safer Choice

• Health Guard® Foaming Luxury Hand Soap Dye & Fragrance Free - 1000 mL - Green Seal

• 102 Glass & Multi-Surface Cleaner - 1/2 Gal. - Green Seal

• 116 Non-Acid Restroom & Shower - 1/2 Gal. - Green Seal

• PC117 Winterclean TP Floor Cleaner - .5 Gal. - Green Seal

• 120 Peroxide Multi-Surface Cleaner - 1/2 Gal. - Green Seal

• 121 Pro-Zyme - 1/2 Gal. - Green Seal

• 123 Neutral-Scrub & Glass Cleaner - 1/2 Gal. - Green Seal

• Hillyard, Super Shine-All® Hard Floor Cleaner, 1 gal Bottle - Green Seal

• Hillyard, Cleaning Companion® Suprox® Multi-Purpose Cleaner, 0.5 gal Bottle - Green Seal

• Other criteria

• Solopol H.D. Hand Cleanser - USDA Biopreferred

• 106 Citrus APC & Degreaser - 1/2 Gal. - 100% biodegradable

• All purchased Apple products met the EPEAT Gold standard. 
• Lenovo ThinkPad - EPEAT Gold
• Lenovo ThinkVision monitors - TCO certified
• Lenovo ThinkCenter desktops - EPEAT Gold

• Davis Furniture products - BIFMA Level 1 or SCS Indoor Advantage Gold -  Preferable  criteria -   https://www.davisfurniture.com/sustainability
• Herman Miller - Closed loop - Other criteria - https://library.hermanmiller.group/m/7f145f16db51ad7b/original/MillerKnoll_Better_World_Report.pdf
• KI - SCS Indoor Advantage Gold  -  Preferable criteria - https://www.ki.com/about/sustainability/product-design/
• OFS - SCS Indoor Advantage Gold  -  Preferable criteria - https://ofs.com/common-ground
• Polywood - Closed loop -  Other criteria -  https://www.polywood.com/sustainability
• Sit On It - Greenguard Gold - Preferable criteria - https://www.sitonit.net/content/dam/exemplis/downloadslisting/misc_downloads/soi_ideon_take_back_program.pdf

Offices order their paper through our Campus Print and Mail center. In FY23 offices ordered $30,945 in office paper - $27,315 of that was 30% recycled content; the other $3,630 was on non-reycled paper.

Notes about cleaning purchasing process:

• Amherst College uses three cleaning suppliers: Kellco, NextGen, and Hillyard.
• For each supplier, we received a summarized invoice that includes all purchases made within a year-long time frame. The performance timelines were January - December 2023 for Kellco; April 2023 - March 2024 for Hillyard, January - December 2023 for NextGen. The Amherst College facilities team consistently uses these three vendors in a rotation, so we can confidently assume that these data make up an accurate representation of a full calendar year, despite the differences in performance year. 
• For each invoice, we first tagged which products to include in this calculation.
• We then evaluated each product for certification by preferable and other sustainability criteria based on STARS guidance. 

Notes about electronics purchasing evaluation:

• Amherst College uses three main electronics vendors: SHI International, a large reseller, through which we buy Lenovo laptops and peripherals; ConvergeOne from whom we buy most of our networking switches and wireless access points; and Apple, from whom we buy many laptops, desktops, and peripherals. 
• We received summarized invoices from each vendor for all purchases Amherst College made between July 2022 to June 2023. 
• We started by tagging which products to include in this calculation. 
• We then evaluated each product for certification by preferable and other sustainability criteria based on STARS guidance. 
• Apple products were sourced from both Apple and Verizon and item prices were not included in the data we received. To determine the amount of money spent on Apple products, we based prices on current prices displayed on the Apple and Verizon websites. If a product was no longer purchaseble on either of these websites, we estimated the price using the closest product available on the website (i.e. Amherst bought multiple 5th generation iPads last year. Since you can no longer purchase the 5th generation iPad through Apple or Verizon, we used the currently available 10th generation iPad as an estimated price). 

Notes about furniture purchasing:

• Amherst College purchased from 6 furniture vendors from January to July 2024.
• First, we tallied the total amount spent at each vendor.
• Finally, we reviewed the sustainability policies of each company to determine whether they fell into the preferable or other sustainability criteria categories.