The County seeks to do business with vendors who support its sustainability goals and hopes that the sustainable purchasing policy will help businesses understand the importance of sustainable practices in terms of what we buy and how they themselves operate. If you are looking to do business with the County it is good to know our Responsible Business Practices at Multnomah County are driven by the Triple Bottom Line of Sustainability.
The Triple Bottom Line of Sustainability is defined as practices that are:
environmentally friendly,
socially equitable and,
have positive economic impacts for our community.
The Sustainable Purchasing and Social Equity policy is not intended to punish businesses that have not implemented the practice of the Triple Bottom Line of Sustainability , but serves to help them identify ways they can be environmental stewards, support social equity, and create opportunities for economic impacts for our community.
This can happen in two areas: the things we buy, and who we buy them from.
Sustainability Guidance for Suppliers
We developed a web page called Responsible Business Practices (For Suppliers) as a resource guide.
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Who we buy from
The County wants to do business with vendors who share our values of community and environmental stewardship and responsible business practices. The County cares about how its business partners operate, because that is a reflection on Multnomah County. The County also believes that in order to support our community (local and global in scale) we need to help our business partners become better and stronger, and more sustainable.
- We want businesses to practice environmental stewardship.
- We value businesses that seek to be innovative in creating pathways to developing and supporting small businesses.
- We value ethical labor practices and businesses that take good care of their employees and their community in the delivery of services for positive economic impacts.
We hope that our vendors will see this as an opportunity to be innovators and join Multnomah County in being leaders in the practice of sustainability.