The Green Schools Initiative developed this Green Schools Buying Guide to help schools make purchasing decisions that will pr­otect children’s health and the environment. Currently, the majority of US schools expose students to pesticides, cleaners, and building materials that can contain hazardous chemicals that ­pose serious risks to the health of teachers, staff and students. Half of schools in the US have poor indoor air quality, according to the US EPA. Schools use tons and to­ns of paper and loads of energy, often with considerable waste of resources.

­The Green Schools Buying Guide can help school administrators, teachers, parents, students, and school board members make their schools healthier and reduce their overall environmental impact. The Guide pulls together information from a variety of sources to serve as a starting point for helping people navigate information about environmentally preferable products, brands, and sources.

This Guide includes information on, and alternatives to, toxic products such as cleaners, art supplies and toys, and pesticides; resource-intensive products like paper, energy and water; unhealthy outdoor products like synthetic turf and arsenic-treated wooden play structures; and school lunch products like disposable tableware or unhealthy food. For each product category, we provide a 'primer' on the product: why buy green, how you can tell if a product is green (criteria or standards for purchasing decisions), whether you can afford to buy green, green product information, and how you can buy green, as well as other resources and environmentally friendly optio­ns. We also include sample buying policies to help schools make decisions about purchases and a list of procurement contract opportunities to facilitate green buying at big discounts for schools.

The links below provide information about green products that will help you build towards our Four Pillars of a Green School. Green purchasing can help you with three of the pillars; the fourth pillar is Curriculum and you can learn more here.

Note on the information provided: our primary focus is schools in California, so we have focused on examples and information relevant to this state. Caveats: The product directories are not exhaustive or proscriptive but rather meant to provide a starting point for green purchasing by suggesting criteria for decision-making and suggestions of greener, healthier products. Wherever possible, links to original information sources are provided. More qualifiers: This is a fast-changing field; product formulations, information, specifications and certification are changing all the time. We will do our best to update. 

We invite anyone ­at a­ny level who is interested in a healthy environment within and outside of their schools to make use of this Guide. It is designed for everyone—from those wishing to overhaul school policy to those who need to purchase a few reams of paper. We hope you find this Guide helpful and we welcome your questions, comments and suggestions for additions (email infoATgreenschoolsDOTnet).

Green Schools Buying Guide