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In preparation for "SB Issues in Focus: Building Credibility & Avoiding Greenwash," SLM CEO Koann Skrzyniarz speaks with Yalmaz Siddiqui, Director of Environmental Strategy for Office Depot about their Green Purchasing Dashboard and their approach to eco-labeling.

Koann: Congratulations on the launch of your new Green Purchasing Dashboard, Yalmaz. Tell us a little about how this came to be and who you have been working with to 'get the bugs out?

Yalmaz: We developed the first dashboard or 'Green Business Review' in Q2'09, and have been honing it over the past several months with feedback from some of our key 'green-minded' customers. It helps customers understand what they spend with Office Depot on products with green attributes, and allows them to see how much of their purchasing was "light green," "bright green" or "dark green." We developed this Shades of Green Product System in collaboration with some of our greenest customers and stakeholders - including purchasing / environmental teams in the Cities of Seattle and Portland as well as experts form the Responsible Purchasing Network.

The Shades of Green Product System and Green Business Review are both relatively simple, but they work. Our shades of green system both simplifies and expands the conversation about what is green. The GBR allows us to have a different conversation with customers than before. Many of our large customers are excited about the Green Business Review because it makes their spending patterns more transparent internally, and allows them to focus on setting and meeting new environmental purchasing goals.

Koann: This kind of trend data is great information for everyone. Are you also tracking overall rolled up sales of your green book products at the same time?

Yalmaz: We've just recently started tracking green sales. In 2007, of $11.3 billion total North American sales, $1.3 billion, or about 12% was on products we consider either "bright green" or "dark green." This is about the same percentage as in 2008 where we had $10.3 billion North American sales and $1.22 billion or 12% bright green or dark green. So while the economy has hit us, as it has everyone, green is not being disproportionately affected. This surprises some people.

Koann: This kind of dashboard is obviously a great service. How are you making it available to customers?

Yalmaz: At the moment, we are focusing on empowering existing large customers who spend over $2 million with Office Depot annually. Our Business Solutions Division representatives are communicating with specific customers about the Green Business Review, and we work on a case-by-case basis to develop them if a customer is interested. It's a manual process right now and it does take time, but our hope is that ultimately we'll be able to streamline the process and make the data available to any Office Depot customer who may be interested.

Koann: As you know, Yalmaz, we see the continuing need for companies to build credibility for their environmental (and social) claims as core to keeping the momentum building in the green marketplace. Retailers, most notably of late Wal-mart and others who are part of the Sustainability Consortium, have been working hard to find solutions for guiding suppliers and customers alike to build and buy smarter, greener, more sustainable products. Office Depot has been one of the leaders in building a portfolio of green product offerings. Can you give us your perspective on the dynamic landscape of eco-labeling and certifications?

Yalmaz: The fundamental question for us continues to be: "how can we help drive the marketplace for more environmentally-preferable products?" Our research has shown that it is really large businesses and government agencies that are currently driving green purchasing, not individual consumers. The majority of business-to-business purchasers who are buying green do so by focusing their green purchasing policies on a fairly tight set of specific product attributes, such as recycled content, remanufactured, energy efficient, non-toxic etc. Our goal is to help these buyers find products that meet their specifications.

From our standpoint, the conversation about defining "what is green" is over-focused on technical considerations and certifications and not enough on key product attributes that empirically reduce environmental impact and are understandable to customers. Certification is a bonus, but measurement along key attributes is what matters most. The problem today is that much of the certification debate has been between eco-labels who argue about which label is "green enough," and worrying more about their own business model than the concerns of the overall marketplace.

Our tack has been to distill and simplify the definition of green into 14 underlying product attributes that are credible, and common in existing green purchasing mandates. A product with one or more of these attributes may be eligible for our Green Book catalog if it meets a high enough standard of green-ness for that attribute. That is the case even if the product has just one attribute and there is no eco-label or certification associated with it. Our Green Book cut-off for recycled content for example is 30% Post Consumer content, and items are included in the catalog even if they are not certified. We also include recycling solutions, refillable pens and pencils, reusable totes and much more in the Green Book, all uncertified.

These products are "green" because of their underlying attributes that deliver environmental benefits of reduced impact vs. typical alternatives. Eco labels and certification are part of the equation in terms of green purchasing but are by no means the only thing that matters. What matters most is that the product has implicit attributes which result in relatively lower impact on the environment and that the customer understands, and wants to buy products with that attribute. What's critical is having a meaningful attribute - one that genuinely delivers an environmental benefit.

There is, of course, value in certification if it is simple and understandable. Certification provides added assurance and validation of a product's environmental claims. At the moment however, the eco-labeling and certification landscape is far too complex for most customers, including sophisticated B2B purchasers. So for the moment, what we've decided to focus on simplifying and clarifying attributes; passively pursuing certification where meaningful to our customers; and working on multi-stakeholder efforts to simplify the eco-labeling landscape. For example, I am a member of the interim steering committee of a multi-stakeholder group working towards a consensus framework for eco-labels. When we are able to shift the market to fewer, more understandable eco-labels, then Office Depot will more actively pursue certification.

Koann: Do you think the new Sustainability Index being driven by Wal-mart, WRI and others will provide a solution?

Yalmaz: Wal-Mart's effort is laudable in many ways. Wal-Mart is probably the only company in the world currently that can drive entire supply chain shifts based on simply making a request. I'm interested to see how their approach evolves, but currently I have three main concerns with the solution Wal-Mart has announced:

First, their Supplier Assessment Questionnaire is focused at the company level not the product level. We think a hard focus on product information is more important. To illustrate: Toyota makes the Prius as well as the Sequoia. The Prius is "green" because it is fuel efficient car, not because Toyota made it. Not all Toyotas are green.

Second, Wal-Mart's focus is currently on conducting Life Cycle Analyses (LCA) for all products, irrespective of how complex those products are. But LCA is a notoriously complicated and expensive tool even for single-material products, never mind multi-material items with long and dynamic supply chains. LCAs are also valuable for analysis, but terrible for decision making between products, even simple products. This is because inherent in each LCA is a set of assumptions about scope, boundaries, use phase etc. LCA does have a role in the solution - in fact, my master's thesis at Cambridge focused on how they can be useful - but they are also expensive and imperfectly complex. I prefer the relative economy and imperfect simplicity of attributes.

Third, Wal-Mart has announced plans to create an LCA-based Eco-label. But this presumes you can compare two products and use LCAs to objectively define "this one is greener." The trouble is, objective comparisons are difficult because ultimately there is a value judgment on "what matters most" (i.e. are harsh chemicals more important than waste? Is energy efficient more important than mercury? Are trees more important than oil?). If you look at 20 LCAs analyzing paper vs. plastic bags, you'll be apt to see 20 different conclusions.

I believe LCA is best used as a dynamic analysis tool to improve specific products during design or redesign, not as a tool to compare between products or apply as an eco-label after design. After all, as soon as you know the lifecycle environmental impact of a product, surely your goal would be to reduce the most significant impacts; not apply an eco-label to that product.

Koann: Over time, I think we both agree that understanding the eco-system of impacts of a given product and the business producing it is helpful data to provide customers, right? The question seems to be how best to simplify this information and provide a means for delivering updated information as it becomes available. GreenGuide.com seems to be taking an incremental step somewhere between where you are, and where Wal-mart is trying to head. With well funded efforts like theirs which are data driven, but also pretty sophisticated in terms of generating iterative consumer feedback on the usability of the information, we expect tremendous movement in this field over the next several months.

Yalmaz: It is an exciting time because I think society is ready to shift its spending patterns. However, I think product attributes such as recycled content, energy efficiency and reduced harsh chemicals go a very long way towards helping us achieve our goal of reduced environmental impact. They are "roughly right" in terms of reducing environmental impact. Coupled with a simplified universe of eco-labels, and use of good, green design for more products, I think we can move the mainstream market to environmentally preferable consumption - even without requiring comprehensive lifecycle analyses.

My preference would be to focus our limited efforts as a society on shifting more of the marketplace to products with clear, simple environmental attributes; helping customers move up the shades of green chart on those attributes; and educating people on the WIFM or "what's in it for me" related to green purchasing. We can do all of this without comprehensive LCAs.

I also think it's important to note that different people care about different things and may not want or need comprehensive lifecycle data to make their decision - especially since LCA researchers make implicit value judgments. Think about organic verses local fruit for example. One customer may prefer organic because of the health benefits of reduced harsh chemicals / pesticides that organic products deliver. Another customer may prefer local because of the perceived carbon emissions associated with shipment of products. The customer can make a decision based on the values / attributes that matter most to them: reduced harsh chemicals / organic or reduced greenhouse gases / local. If they care about both, they'd buy organic and local.

Now, if someone invented a quick, simple and cost-effective total lifecycle impact tool that could be used to inform the initial design or redesign of a product, that's interesting. It must however be usable by all product manufacturers, small or large, and inexpensive enough to be done on broad basis.

Finally, if someone can find ways to communicate this information to mainstream purchasers, not just a green niche, then even better. Good Guide seems to have the workings of an interesting model but I'm not fully convinced yet. I also worry that we are spending too much time on the technical aspects of green product definition and comprehensive disclosure, and not enough on simplification. We have a pretty solid understanding of the general principles of what makes something greener. We need to do a lot more work on the behavioral, organizational sociological aspects of green purchasing.

Koann: Now there's another interesting set of conversations for next time! In the meantime, What are your 'green business goals' over the next three years?

Yalmaz: At Office depot, we have a holistic environmental strategy to "increasingly buy green, be green and sell green." Within that umbrella strategy, the following are our key aims related to green products:

Koann: That's great, Yalmaz. I'd love to learn more about this and am happy you and some of the Keystone participants will share some of the outcomes and goals following your January 6th-7th meeting at our January 14th online Symposium, "Sustainable Brands Issues in Focus: Building Credibility, Avoiding Greenwash" where we'll be pulling together many of the leading voices in this space to update each other and the broader brand community on where the eco-labeling/certification conversation is heading. And of course we look forward to continuing to keep up with what you're doing to help build a greener business at Office Depot.

Yalmaz: I very much look forward to it. And in the meantime, your keep readers can keep up to date with our environmental sustainability activities at www.officedepot.com/environment, where they can also sign up to receive my periodical Environmental Update newsletter.

Koann: I encourage the visit. You have a wealth of great resource information there for those interested!

Editor's Note: Yalmaz will be part of our online faculty, January 14th at "SB Issues in Focus: Building Credibility & Avoiding Greenwash," where he will share more about Office Depot's internal green product labeling system, how they designed it, what it took in terms of time and resources to develop, and how their customers are using it to aid in their purchasing decisions.

1. Continue expanding our catalogue of products with those green attributes and certifications that are sought by our largest customers;
2. Help large purchasers with environmentally preferable purchasing policies measure their spending patterns against their own policies;
3. Help customers without environmentally preferable policies write simple, understandable and implementable policies;
4. Continue to educate customers with 'what's in it for them' with respect to adopting a buying green; and
5. Work on a multi-stakeholder dialog facilitated by the Keystone Center to simplify and demystify the landscape of certifications and labels.