Green Office Supplies

Assess the environmental impact of office supplies acquired by the Faculty of Biology and make more sustainable alternative proposals

Purchases of office supplies at the Faculty are carried out independently for each of the secretaries of the various departments and sections as well as the secretariy of the faculty, through the various suppliers of the University of Barcelona. The criteria used, however, are diverse such as price or delivery date, and in most cases do not consider the actual environmental impact, beyond the basic knowledge (plastic versus cardboard or recycled materials). Actual impact includes not only the materials but also the manufacture, the location of the place of production and of assembly and the types of transport until the own faculty. This impact must be added to the carbon footprint of the faculty itself. Our goal is to identify the most purchased office supplies and to carry out an environmental eco-audit taking into account the different stages of their life cycle (raw material, manufacturing, transport, use and final disposal), in order to determine which stage of the life cycle of the product is the one with the greatest environmental impact. Based on this analysis, options will be searched in the catalogs of authorized suppliers that provide purchase options with less impact. The results will be communicated to the secretary and faculty staff in order to promote the shift to more sustainable buying options. This action will be carried out by students of the degree of Environmental Sciences of the Faculty of Biology and the Degree of Materials Engineering of the Faculty of Chemistry, in collaboration with the Office of Safety, Health and Environment of the University.

In this first stage, the idea is to conduct a pilot study only in Faculty of Biology. Later on, if the project turns out successful, it could be expanded to all the faculties of the Universitat de Barcelona.

Report with a compendium of information collected and software license (€ 400).

The activities can be done by teleworking and the software is remotely accessible.