for vendors, manufacturers, government

procurement officials, and EPP Program

staff to discuss ways to increase environmentally preferable purchasing practices

throughout the government.

Fidel Reijerse, a conference participant

from Ontario, Canada, reported that the

< Continued on Page 3 >

< Continued on Page 2 

For the first time, the federal government's $200 billion-a-yearpurchasing power will focus on

the environment in a uniform, comprehensive way. Environmental considerations are now officially part of the

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR),

the federal procurement "bible." On

August 22, 1997, after years of work

and deliberation, final changes to the

FAR were published in the Federal

Register. The final rule incorporates

policies for the acquisition of environmentally preferable and energy-efficient

products and services. These changes

were effective as of October 21, 1997,

for new federal contracts.

The FAR provides the basic contracting

guidance and implementing regulations

used by federal agencies for buying products and services from the private sector.

Policies addressing environmental concerns are addressed under Subchapter D,

Socioeconomic Programs, Part 23,

Environment, Conservation, Occupational

Safety, and Drug-Free Workplace. 

The FAR changes consolidate numerous environmental purchasing requirements previously issued in laws,

The Greening of the FAR

2Printed on paper that contains at least 20 percent postconsumer fiber.

•Bees Software 

•DOD’s “Green”

Parking Lots

•Recent EPP

Publications 

•New EPP Publications

Coming Soon

•NACo’s

Environmentally

Preferable Purchasing

Project

•Cleaning Products

Pilot Project Update

Highlights
to "...prepare product descriptions to

achieve maximum practicable use of

recovered materials, other materials that

are environmentally preferable, and

products that are energy-efficient." 

Agencies also are required to "consider

environmental objectives in every source

selection, when appropriate." The FAR

states that "these considerations may be

expressed in terms such as resource or

energy conservation, pollution prevention,

waste minimization, and recovered material content.”

Key environmental terms

for use in federal contracts

also have been added to the

FAR. "Postconsumer material," "virgin material," "reconditioned," "remanufactured,"

"pollution prevention," and

even the word "new" are

defined for use in contracts

for goods and services supplied to the government. ■

2

For additional information, consult

the August 22, 1997 Federal Register

(volume 62, number 163, pages

44809-44813). The Federal Register

is available online

http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/

aces/aces140.html. 

If additional clarification is necessary, contact Ralph De Stefano with the

General Services Administration at 

202 501-1758 and cite FAC 97-01, 

FAR case 92-054A.

Water Conservation

at Federal Facilities.

• Office of Federal

Procurement Policy

(OFPP) Policy Letter

92-4 on

Procurement of

EnvironmentallySound and EnergyEfficient Products

and Services.

p(

guidance).

(2) Obtaining products considered

to be energy-efficient; i.e., products

that are in the upper 25 percent of

energy-efficiency for all similar products, or products that are at least

10 percent more efficient than the

minimum level that meets federal

standards (see Executive Order

12902, Section 507).

(3) Eliminating or reducing the generation of hazardous waste and the

need for special material processing

(including special handling, storage,

treatment, and disposal).

(4) Promoting the use of nonhazardous and recovered materials.

(5) Realizing life-cycle cost savings.

(6) Promoting cost-effective waste

reduction when creating plans,

drawings, specifications, standards,

and other product descriptions

authorizing material substitutions,

extensions of shelf-life, and process

improvements.
environmental attributes to the federal

government. The manufacturers and

vendors learned about some of the constraints facing federal buyers and creative ways in which others have

navigated the complex federal procurement environment.

"I was impressed by the fact that I

was encouraged to stand up and tell

the 450 people who attended what

frustrated me about my dealings with

the government on my [government]

contract," explained Greg Barber, a

conference participant.

"This was a no holds

what is already going on: we saw

lots of activities in the private sector and in government that show

how many people are thinking about

these issues and considering multiple

environmental attributes in purchasing

decisions. This speaks well for the

future success of EPP."

The symposium minutes, attendee

list, and networking notes are available

from the EPP Program's web page at

http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp. ■

exchange."

The EPP Program

unveiled its new booth

at the “Greening

Federal Purchasing”

symposium in

Baltimore, Maryland. It

is used to promote

environmentally preferable purchasing and to

distribute EPP publications. The booth has

been seen recently at

P2 Week festivities in

Washington, DC, and

at the National

Recycling Coalition’s

conference in Orlando,

Florida. Look for it at

upcoming conferences

in your area.
NIST's Building Environment

Division began the project in 1995 after

recognizing that building materials,

construction, and operation, including

raw materials extraction, building material manufacture and transport, building use, and building-related waste

generation, can significantly impact the

environment. NIST decided to develop

a tool that would help mitigate negative

environmental impacts by identifying

building materials that properly balance

both environmental and cost concerns.

The result is the BEES decision-support

software, which incorporates a life-cycle

approach that considers the economic

and environmental impacts of numer

The BEES software generates relative

environmental scores for building product alternatives with a ranking system

based on U.S. average product data that

was compiled for use in the software.

The economic and environmental performance scores are then combined into

an overall performance measure. ■

4

product's economic

and environmental

performance data.

Individuals using the

BEES software can

select the relative

importance for each

of the six environmental impact categories included in the

software: global

warming, acidification, nitrification, 

natural resource

depletion, indoor air

quality, and solid

waste. The software

also allows the user

to select the relative

weights of the environmental and economic performance

scores when computing the overall performance score for each

product. 

For additional 

information, 

contact Barbara

Lippiatt with NIST 

at 301 975-6133 or via

e-mail at

blippiatt@nist.gov.
mental attributes to repair and maintain

those parking lots.

In June, DOD awarded a 5-year, $1

million per year contract to maintain

and repair the parking lots and access

roads at four Washington, DC, area

facilities, including the Pentagon's 67

acres of parking. The contract includes

several unique features to ensure that

the work not only meets all price and

quality concerns, but also incorporates

the use of products with multiple environmental attributes whenever feasible.

As one of the first EPP pilot projects,

DOD teamed with EPA to help develop

its strategy for incorporating environmental preferability into its contracting

process. EPA recently released Paving

the Road to Success, a case study that

explains how DOD incorporated the

seven guiding principles outlined in

EPA's Guidance on Acquisition of

Environmentally Preferable Products and

Services in the parking lot repair and

maintenance contract.

The most innovative aspect of the contract provides the contractor with a

financial incentive to use products with

tract, had already identified several

products and a new process, all of

which appear to significantly improve

environmental quality while continuing

to meet or exceed DOD's mandatory

performance criteria. Gene Asher, DM&S's President, is very pleased with

the process for incorporating new environmental attributes and is excited at

the opportunity to earn a price differential for doing so. 

"We are really excited about the project," Asher explained. "Incorporating

environmentally friendly products is the

wave of the future and should help our

future business."

Call EPA's Pollution Prevention

Information Clearinghouse at 202 260-

1023 or e-mail ppic@epamail.epa.gov

to order a copy of Paving the Road to

Success (EPA 742-R-97-007). For additional information, contact Ruth

Heikkinen with EPA's EPP Program at

202 260-1803 or via e-mail at heikkinen.ruth@epamail.epa.gov or contact

Bob Cox with DOD at 703 693-3765 or

RCox@ccmail.gov.ref.osd.mil. ■

y

the federal 

government 

purchases more

than $200 

billion worth of

goods and 

services each

year?
6

medium sized companies—better target

the federal consumer, the largest purchaser of goods and services in the

United States. This fold out poster

brochure includes an outline of the

guiding principals of the EPP Program,

answers to frequently asked questions

about selling environmental products to

Environmental Marketing Claims are

summarized in the brochure, along

with a discussion on the content, purpose, and enforcement of the guidelines. Also included are examples from

the FTC guidelines and how the guidelines can affect government purchasing. ■

To order free copies of these publications, call EPA's Pollution Prevention

Information Clearinghouse at 202 260-1023 or E-mail ppic@epamail.epa.gov.

EPA identified seven guiding principles to help federal agencies incorporate environmental preferability into their procurement practices. These principles were proposed in the Federal Register

(FR) in EPA's Guidance on Acquisition of Environmentally Preferable Products and Services (60 FR

50722):

1) Consideration of environmental preferability should begin early in the acquisition process and

be rooted in the ethic of pollution prevention, which strives to eliminate or reduce, up front,

potential risks to human health and the environment.

2) A product or service's environmental preferability is a function of multiple attributes.

EPA's Environmentally Preferable Guidance
3) Environmental preferability should reflect the life-cycle considerations of products and services

to the extent feasible.

4) Environmental preferability should consider the scale (global versus local) and temporal

reversibility aspects of a product or service's impact.

5) Environmental preferability should be tailored to local conditions where appropriate.

6) Environmental objectives of products or services should be a factor or subfactor in competition

among vendors, when appropriate.

7) Agencies need to examine product attribute claims carefully. ■

also adopted an Integrated Pest

Management approach in city facilities

to replace regular spraying of indoor

pesticides. 

State Government Case Study:

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Find out how the Commonwealth of

Massachusetts increased its environmentally preferable purchasing efforts from

$2 million to $21 million a year. An

upcoming case study documents the his

both facilities protect indoor air

quality, maximize

energy efficiency,

reduce water consumption, incorporate the use of

environmentally

preferable building

materials, encourage alternative forms

of transportation, and promote pollution prevention during the construction

process. ■

For additional information on these

and other EPP case studies, check the

EPP web page regularly

http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp. 

If you would like to suggest or participate in a case study, please fill out the

form on the back of this newsletter.
efficiency; and printing.

NACo will share ongoing results

throughout the duration of the pilot programs with anyone who is interested. In

addition, an advisory committee of local

elected officials, environmental staff

members, and procurement officials will

promote environmentally preferable purchasing to NACo members.

ments with radon and indoor air pollu

tants, coastal watershed management,

and pollution prevention initiatives. For

more information about NACo's environmentally preferable purchasing initiative

or other pollution prevention activities,

contact Naomi Friedman with NACo at

202 942-4262 or via e-mail at nfriedma@naco.org, or Tony Hayes at 202

942-4247 or thayes@naco.org. n

8

I represent good ol' Uncle Sam, 

Uncle Sam I am.

We've decided to buy what's clean, 

Our President told us we must be more green.

With the world's largest pocket book, 

We must give products a second look!

A sacrifice in performance?, not necessarily, 

Products can be greened ordinarily!

Green Uncle Sam
Products Pilot Project

Fact Sheet (EPA742-F97-001).

Since that time,

the members of

the pilot project have continued to

promote their

findings.

Recent and

forthcoming activities include:

custodial staff. After its release, the

video will become part of the national USPS technical training program.

• Interactive Internet Tool

The cleaning products matrix is being

adapted as an interactive Internet site.

In addition to including information

on the pilot project, the web site will

assist purchasers in selecting cleaning

products based on their environmental attributes. The site will be available

at: http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp.■

power to good

use. Select 

products with

positive 

environmental

attributes.

But how on earth can I tell what a Lorax might prefer? 

To whom for such a decision can I defer?

GSA and DLA offer supply catalogs to assist, 

EPA and others will help add to the list.

Demand is stimulating all sorts of new information, 

Government suppliers respond with green formulations.

Be it by GSA Advantage or my IMPAC card, 

Environmental performance is not to be barred!

Resist the temptation of being a Grinch, 

Buying green can be a cinch!

Heed Uncle Sam's new found cry, 

Let's put our money where our mouth is when we buy!

We all represent Uncle Sam, 

We can green him yes we can!

I like Green Uncle Sam,

Green Uncle Sam I am.

With sincere apologies to Dr. Seuss. This poem was presented

by Jim Aidala, EPA's Environmental Executive and Associate

Assistant Administrator of the Office of Prevention, Pesticides,

and Toxic Substances at the July 1997 EPP Symposium in

Baltimore.
10

demonstration projects to test out

the con

If you are interested in becoming a

Pioneer in EPP or know of a federal colleague who is, contact Eun-Sook Goidel

at goidel.eunsook@epamail.epa.gov or

Ruth Heikkinen at heikkinen.ruth@epamail.epa.gov, or fill out the form on

the right. ■
Has anyone documented these efforts in a case study? ❑ Yes ❑ No

Future Efforts:

Please describe opportunities to initiate or expand environmentally preferable purchasing 

within your agency.

Would you like EPA's assistance with this effort? ❑ Yes ❑ No

Please mail, fax, or e-mail your responses to:

Danielle Bartoni

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

401 M Street, SW. (7409)

Washington, DC 20460

Phone: 202 260-3553

Fax: 202 260-0178

E-mail: bartoni.danielle@epamail.epa.gov

✃cut