Responsible Purchasing Network Staff

Alicia Culver, RPN Director
Alicia’s experience working on sustainability issues spans more than two decades. She has provided technical support to procurement agents and environmental program staff in many states and municipalities. She has helped develop model “green” purchasing policies and specifications for a wide-range of environmentally preferable goods and services such as low-mercury/energy-efficient fluorescent lamps, asthma-safe cleaning products, and compostable food service ware.

Alicia formerly worked as the Deputy Director of the New Jersey Office of Sustainability and founded the Green Purchasing Institute. She currently chairs San Francisco’s Sweatfree Procurement Advisory Group and has served as an advisor to many other organizations, including the National Healthy Schools Network, Green Guide for Health Care, GoodGuide, the Product Policy Institute, Environmental Working Group, and the European Environmental Bureau.

Among the publications Alicia has co-authored includes Cleaning for Health: Products and Practices for a Safer Indoor Environment, RPN’s Responsible Purchasing Guides to Fluorescent Lighting and LEDs, and Buying Smart: Experiences of Municipal Green Purchasing Pioneers. The Green Purchasing Institute’s Buying Smart report details how states and municipalities across the US have found that their environmentally preferable purchasing initiatives often yield economic as well as environmental rewards.

Christina Hug, Marketing Intern
B.Com, University of Ottawa. Certificate in the Foundations of Graphic Design, George Brown College. Christina began her career in green business with TerraChoice Environmental Marketing, stewards of the EcoLogo certification program and producers of the "Sins of Greenwashing" reports, where she acted as the Sales and Marketing Coordinator. She then transitioned to an Account Manager role with Key Gordon Communications, an award-winning, sustainability-focused Canadian agency best known for its FLICK OFF! Campaign - designed to raise awareness about climate change among youth and adults alike. She is well versed in social media, has a keen interest in emerging marketing and communications platforms, and has a passion for helping genuinely green products and organizations succeed. She joins RPN as a marketing intern with the hopes of playing a significant role in increasing engagement of current members, generating new member outreach initiatives and raising the overall profile of RPN. In her spare time she can be found trying out new restaurants as a self-proclaimed foodie-in-training, or running the trails of Golden Gate Park.

Phillip Kobernick, RPN Manager
B.A. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).  Phillip joined RPN shortly after graduating from UCLA with a strong interest in sustainability and supply chain management.  As the previous fellow for RPN, he performed research into various environmentally preferable products, specifications and policies and developed a purchasing guide on bottled water alternatives for universities.  He currently manages the day-to-day operations of RPN, including the membership program, which consists of over 250 institutional members, and recently authored “Responsible Purchasing Trends Report – 2010,” an annual analysis of green purchasing among RPN members. In his spare time, he enjoys backpacking in the Sierra Nevada and visiting as many state and national parks as he can.

Ellen Love, Research Associate
B.A., Brown University; Masters of Public Policy, UC Berkeley. Ellen has a background working with green businesses as well as experience with fundraising and data analysis. Before completing her master’s degree in public policy, she worked with WAGES, a non-profit organization that helps low-income women start cooperative green businesses. She is particularly interested in how environmentally preferable purchasing policies can support local green jobs. When she is in the office, Ellen enjoys crunching numbers and talking with members from around the country. When she isn’t in the office, Ellen likes to play soccer and spend time in her roof garden.