Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 58.75
Liaison Mark Klapatch-Mathias
Submission Date May 1, 2014
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

University of Wisconsin-River Falls
OP-13: Cleaning Products Purchasing

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.25 / 1.00 Roxanne Schneberger
Purchasing Agent
Facilities Management
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

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Does the institution have an institution-wide stated preference to purchase third party certified cleaning and janitorial products?:
Yes

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A copy of the green cleaning product purchasing policy, directive, or guidelines:
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The green cleaning product purchasing policy, directive, or guidelines:
None currently.

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A brief description of steps the institution has taken to ensure that the purchasing policy, directives, or guidelines are followed:
Facilities Management and Custodial Services at UWRF purchase cleaning products from Envirox, a producer of both Green Seal and EcoLogo certified products. State contract vendors and other third party vendors who use cleaning products are also encouraged to use certified cleaning products whenever possible. Green Cleaning on Campus Custodial Services has begun using a green chemical cleaning system in the academic buildings. A series of experiments with various green chemicals was done fall semester (2007) and a selection was made to use Envirox products (http://www.enviroxclean.com/). Short of a few academic buildings and the residence halls, we're almost done switching everything over. Benefits of the green chemical cleaning program include improvement in overall building health, cost savings (less products are used), fewer toxins in the indoor environment, and safer to use (no injurious caustic burns). The new cleaning program delivers better cleaning results and cost savings against toxic and hazardous cleaning chemical concerns in the indoor work environment. Custodial Services also just recently added new foam soap dispensers in all restrooms. The product used in the dispensers is also green and results in additional cost savings because not as much is wasted or needed to be effective. The new dispensers were provided free of charge from the vendor.

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Does the institution wish to pursue Part 2 of this credit (expenditures on cleaning and janitorial products)?:
No

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Expenditures on Green Seal and/or UL Environment (EcoLogo) certified cleaning and janitorial products:
12,836.96 US/Canadian $

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Total expenditures on cleaning and janitorial products:
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Has the institution's main cleaning or housekeeping department(s) and/or contractor(s) adopted a Green Seal or ISSA certified low-impact, ecological (“green”) cleaning program?:
Yes

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A brief description of the institution’s low-impact, ecological cleaning program:
This occurs in a couple of work units within campus since Custodial Operations are not centralized on the UWRF campus. The Hunt-Knowles Rec/Athletic Complex, the University Center, Residence Life, and Facilities Management all have some form of green cleaning system in place. In 2014 there is work being done to further the campus efforts to consolidate product lines even further.

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A copy of the sections of the cleaning contract(s) that reference certified green products:
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The sections of the cleaning contract(s) that reference certified green products:
State of Wisconsin cleaning chemical contract: "Awarded vendors of this contract will work with end-users to replace non-green certified cleaning chemicals with Green Certified (Green Seal, Ecologo or EPA DfE) chemicals through product testing processes." UWRF buys multiple items off of this contract but none as of yet are green. This green product waiver will expire when the contract is redone. http://vendornet.state.wi.us/vendornet/asp/ContractDetail.asp?SystemContractNumber=2588

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The website URL where information about the institution’s green cleaning initiatives is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
http://www.uwrf.edu/Purchasing/SupplyOrderingInformation.cfm All the paper products (TP, towels) are contracted to contain recycled content and usually chlorine free as well. These contracts are on the Wisconsin State VendorNet site. **Expenditures above reflect academic and administrative buildings, not to include the Hunt Knowles Athletic Center, Residential Halls, and the University Center.** **Because of the fragmentation of purchasing of cleaning products on campus, there is currently no effective method in place to track total expenditures on cleaning products.** Sustainable Campus-Community Plan: "Implement measures to more accurately track cleaning product purchases on campus; because of the fragmentation of purchasing of cleaning products, there is currently no effective method in place to track total expenditures on cleaning products. Budget: No additional expenditures are anticipated to effectively organize and track purchases already being made. Existing cost codes can likely be aggregated to better track all cleaning product purchases."

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