Our eco-friendly approach to procurement
We value businesses that prioritize decreasing energy consumption, safe chemical use, and promoting social and environmental responsibility.
At Rochester Regional, we understand that our purchasing choices touch every facet of our sustainability efforts. Acting as gatekeepers, our purchasing department ensures that each product, supply, and service we procure aligns with our mission to make healthier, more responsible choices.
We put our dollars where our values are, prioritizing local suppliers, cleaner supply chains, and companies that uphold ethical standards for their workers. This conscious consumerism helps us make a tangible difference in our environment and our community.
Did you know? We're proud that Rochester Regional boasts a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified building. And we're stepping up our game, with four new buildings in the pipeline for certification.
Our Initiatives
A key part of our work is offering a clean, safe environment to treat any illness that comes our way. This commitment has inspired us to find sustainable cleaning alternatives that are equally potent against harmful bacteria and viruses, yet safe for our patents, staff, and environment.
We've embraced the use of Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) across our system—a cutting-edge sterilization method that neutralizes harmful micro-organisms using ultraviolet light. In addition, we've pivoted to floor cleaning machines that use electrically polarized water which effectively clean without the need for detergents. Besides saving time and money, they also preserve water and eliminate detergent residues, making them a more environmental and safety-conscious choice.
We love our local vendors. Choosing them often equates to better service delivery, lower prices, and decreased environmental footprints. More importantly, it boosts our local economy—providing jobs, better wages, and recirculating our spending.
Current statistics show that local businesses give back 50-60% of their earnings to the local economy. Meanwhile, chains only contribute less than 30%. In a city with high poverty statistics like Rochester, shifting where we purchase can positively impact the socioeconomic status of our community.
Right now, we're actively exploring ways to track our expenditure to identify locally sourced products. We are proud to say that we buy produce from 19 regional farms within 250 miles of our facilities (15 of which are in Western New York). We also utilize local companies for our energy efficiency and green energy programs, including LED lamp retrofits and solar installations.
We take a forward-looking approach when it comes to the materials we use. Certain manufacturing processes emit chemicals that accumulate in the environment and wildlife, causing long-term environmental and human health risks. Our objective is to tackle this issue head-on by finding safer alternatives in our supply chains, given sufficient evidence of harm.
We're committed to fostering better health for our community, economically, environmentally, and physically. To do this, we're carefully crafting sustainable purchasing criteria that balance social, economic, and environmental impacts, guided by our values: quality, compassion, respect, collaboration, and foresight. Rochester Regional is the second largest employer in our region, and we believe in wielding our economic influence for the good of our community.
Our aim is simple: purchase locally, go for safer materials, and partner with companies that value their workforce. This means that everything we buy—from products to services—will go through an internal process to ensure sustainable procurement.
Let's connect
Get in touch with us to learn more about our sustainable purchasing initiatives, or if you're a supplier who shares our values. We're eager to collaborate!