The Low-Down

• All of the paper purchasing for 18 Atlantic universities is currently coordinated through Interuniversity Services Inc. (ISI), a buying co-op (makes it cheaper for universities)

• ISI consolidates university requirements, develops product specifications, manages customer complaints and negotiates annual contracts.

• ISI contracts for paper supplies is done through a "competitive procurement process". It receives volume and specification requirements from the 17 Universities and from volume reports from its supplier, following which ISI asks for quotes from paper companies for an annual supply. ISI was with Cascades Resources up until June 30, 2005 and with Unisource thereafter.

• ISI requested pricing for virgin bond paper, 30% post consumer recycled content paper, and 100% post-consumer recycled content paper. An agreement was then put in place with Unisource and there is pricing for all three grades of white paper available to the institutions, so that the Member Universities can decide which product they will use.

• We have asked for figures on pricing of the three grades of white paper as mentioned above so we could compile financial comparisons, but they will not give us this info.

Who to Talk To

Click here to see the member campuses & contact info of the co-op!

http://www.interuniversity.ns.ca/contactus.php

The Solution

1 - Cutting down on paper use, by

• Printing double-sided

• Eliminating unnecessary printing jobs

• Encouraging professors to accept assignments online

• Encouraging class documents to be distributed online

2 - Using only 100% post-consumer recycled paper, through

• Either selecting the best possible option from the current supplier
• Or changing paper company that Atlantic universities buy from

How to Make it Work

2 Proposals to Date:

1. Kyoto-fashion, whereby the switch to another paper company would only occur once X percent of the universities signed on.
2. Cap and Tax system by university. If one leads, the rest will follow.

What Now?

• This way to current actions!