Mexican Government Establishes Green Procurement Standards
by Eliza Barclay, Nomad on 12. 4.07
In an effort to boost the country's nascent sustainable forestry and recycling industries and promote sustainable supply chains, the Mexican government has made an admirable commitment to green its procurement of paper and woods products, beginning in March 2008.
This fall, the Federal Public Administration, which is responsible for much of the federal government's procurement of supplies, decreed that it would only buy chlorine-free paper made of at least 50% recycled material and/or from non-timber fiber products. It also committed to purchase wood for furniture from sustainably-managed forests approved under the General Law of Sustainable Forest Development.
The Federal Public Administration consumes 14,600 tons of paper annually, according to the Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat, and the annual expenditure of the government on forest products, not including paper, is close to one billion pesos (US$91 million). Sergio Madrid, director of the Mexican Civil Council for Sustainable Forestry, said that the new mandate for sustainably-harvested wood products opens an enormous opportunity to reactivate the country's forest sector. ::Via New Ventures Mexico Blog
