Green Procurement: Overview and Issues for Congress
Released: 2010-04-20T00:00:00

Increasing concerns about global warming, energy independence, and public health have contributed to a rise in public interest in so-called "green" products and services, and the development of a "green" economy. A number of federal programs and activities are relevant to that interest. In addition to well-known programs aimed at the public such as Energy Star (see text box below ), the federal government is itself a major consumer of goods and services, spending more than $500 billion per year on procurement ( Table 1 ), with annual spending increasing significantly in recent years. Substantial proportions of those expenditures are on goods and services with significant environmental impacts. For example, in both FY2008 and FY2009, more than half of the funds spent on manufactured goods was for transportation equipment, and more than 15% was for information technology and other electronics and electrical products. Construction of buildings and other structures comprised 11% of spending in FY2008 and 7% in FY2009.

Those levels of expenditure imply that greater use of green procurement practices could significantly reduce the environmental impacts of federal activities. Furthermore, federal policies and practices relating to green procurement may have significant impact on the adoption of such practices by state and local governments and the private sector. They might also serve to stimulate growth and innovation in green sectors of the national economy, potentially influencing the availability of green products and services in the marketplace and the development of associated industries.

Several relevant federal procurement requirements and programs have been established, beginning with a requirement enacted in the 1970s for federal agencies to purchase products with recycled content. That requirement and some additional initiatives focus largely or entirely on federal procurement, whereas others, such as Energy Star, a joint program of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy, were specifically designed to have a broader market focus. These two kinds of federal efforts, which may be called agency-focused and market-focused, respectively, are distinct but not completely independent. For example, Energy Star originated as a market-focused program aimed largely at consumers, but it is now included in federal regulations relating to acquisition of energy-consuming appliances and even buildings.

Most of the federal initiatives focus on specific inputs or effects that a product might have, such as energy use, recycled content, or toxicity. This approach can allow for fairly straightforward implementation of a given initiative, but it may also be criticized as not paying sufficient attention to interactions or trade-offs among various factors. In addition, evaluating the effectiveness of initiatives in implementing federal green policy can be challenging.

Several factors contribute to this situation. A fundamental problem is that there is no general agreement on what green procurement is or how best to implement it. Also, several barriers exist to broader adoption, both within the federal government and in the broader economy. Those include inadequate information, lack of common standards, concerns about costs, and both market and technical uncertainties. Debate about the desirability or feasibility of meeting green policy goals such as reducing greenhouse-gas emissions may also create uncertainties.

However, this report does not specifically address controversies about the desirability of green policy goals, either those Congress has established in various statutes, or those specifically addressed in executive orders issued by Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama. Those controversies are complex, often long-standing, and beyond the scope of this report, but some of the major ones are discussed in other CRS documents. This report also does not address issues specific to the complex area of federal procurement, which is also discussed in other CRS documents.

Rather, the report focuses on procurement from a green policy perspective. It discusses the problem of what green procurement means, selected aspects of applicability to and implementation by federal agencies (both initiatives aimed largely at federal agencies and those with a broader focus), and issues that Congress may decide to address with respect to federal green procurement programs. Those issues include what green procurement means in the federal context; how programs and requirements should be established, assessed, and harmonized; and what gaps exist at present with respect to focus, implementation, and evaluation.

What Is Green Procurement?

Green procurement may appear to be a somewhat fuzzy concept, given the variety of ways in which it and related terms are used. There are many different practices and criteria that are called "green," and several alternative terms that are used at least somewhat interchangeably in public discourse. In fact, the term green came into widespread use only in the last several years. Other terms used in various documents both historically and currently include "environmentally preferable," "sustainable," "affirmative," and "socially responsible" procurement. Those and other terms may have specific meanings in some contexts but they may also be used somewhat interchangeably in other contexts. In addition, green procurement may be used in some cases to refer to purchasing of products and services with specific attributes such as energy or water efficiency, or use of biobased or recycled materials or nontoxic chemicals, without necessarily taking other factors into account.

Such variations in usage and meaning can create significant difficulties in understanding what green procurement is and in the development and implementation of policy goals. Therefore, this section of the report develops a general conceptual framework for consideration of policy issues associated with green procurement. It draws from both public- and private-sector initiatives and analyses. It discusses examples from federal programs, including those that have a focus beyond procurement by federal agencies, as well as examples involving states and the private sector. Green-procurement activities by federal agencies are discussed specifically later, in the section on " Federal Green Purchasing Initiatives ."

Green as a Relative Concept

The apparent fuzziness of green procurement as a concept can create uncertainties and even confusion that may make addressing policy issues difficult. To help avoid such problems, the following characterizations are used in this report:

A green product or service can usefully be thought of as one that has a significantly smaller environmental footprint than the average or standard product or service of the same type (see Figure 1 ). The environmental footprint of a product or service can be described as its overall impact on the environment, including use of resources such as energy and water, and effects on health and other aspects of the human environment. Green procurement can be thought of as the range of processes by which such green products and services can be acquired. Green practices also include related procedures and actions that result in a reduced environmental footprint, such as using products in ways that optimize their green characteristics.

In this view, the industry average or standard at any given time is generally not considered green. Consequently, as products, services, and practices currently thought of as green become standard practice within an industry, the threshold for something to be considered green would change—moving to a level of environmental impact that is lower than the new standard.

Most products and services acquired through procurement activities are likely to be subject to some environmental constraints—for example, they may be subject to environmental regulations, or the industry standard may incorporate environmental protections for other reasons. Consequently, those exhibiting more extreme impacts are unlikely to be considered standard practice, as illustrated in Figure 1 . At the same time, having lower impact than what is currently standard does not necessarily mean that a practice is a sustainable one—that is, maintaining an environmental footprint that is small enough that it will not impede future human activity and the functioning of ecosystems.

Green procurement practices may also include those that have no net environmental impact (or zero impact , as shown in the figure), which is unattainable in most instances at present, except in some cases for some attributes such as energy (see also the section on " Life Cycle Analysis " below). For example, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA, P.L. 110-140 ) set a goal of zero net energy use by 2030 for new federal buildings. In theory, at least, a product or service could even have a positive environmental impact, at least for some elements, such as a building that produces more energy than it uses, for example via solar panels, and returns the surplus to the grid.

The relative approach to green procurement described here may appear to create difficulties for implementation to the extent it makes green a moving target, depending on the current industry average. However, it does not preclude an approach incorporating a fixed target such as zero impact. It can also be seen as an application of the well-established business practice of continual improvement. And it is consistent with a common feature in the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards, which are usually reviewed and updated on a periodic basis as technology, practices, and requirements evolve. Current federal law encourages the use of such standards by federal agencies in general, and some specific standards are referenced in some provisions in federal laws relating to environmental policy. States may also reference such standards, for example in building codes and procurement requirements for agencies. Some sets of consensus standards have been developed specifically with respect to green procurement, for example in information technology (IT), as discussed later in this report.

This use of green as a relative concept has several potential advantages. It allows for broad application of practices and standards to different products and services, and for adaptation to the specific conditions faced by different sectors and industries. It arguably facilitates the use of performance standards rather than design standards, and the former are generally regarded as preferable. It also permits gradual and continual reduction in environmental impact over time—for example, gradual reduction in energy use or production of pollutants. Finally, it avoids the inherent problems with defining what green is in a more fixed or absolute sense.

However, some observers may prefer a different meaning. Some may argue that simply taking environmental issues into account is sufficient to practice green procurement. Others may express concerns about a relative approach being more difficult to apply to specific cases, presenting unpredictably shifting goals, not accounting for inherent limitations in reducing environmental footprints, or permitting slower progress toward goals than some may desire.

For example, use of recycled content in paper products would generally be regarded as a green practice. If the goal for that practice is set at a particular percentage, such as 50%, of such content, then it is relatively easy for a manufacturer to conform and for buyers to assess whether a given product does so. But if the goal is to have more recycled content than average, a manufacturer or buyer would have to know what that average was to assess what a green percentage would be. Furthermore, if the average were 75% recycled content, then only paper with higher percentages would be considered green. If the average were 100%, no paper would be considered green with respect to recycled content. Finally, setting a high specific target, such as 100%, may result in more rapid increases in average recycled content than setting a relative goal.

Such objections can be met in several ways. For example, documentary standards can be used, where targets are set by an independent entity and can be revised as conformance improves. A proxy or indicator such as a green label can be used to indicate whether a product meets the standard. That is one approach used, for example in green IT, as discussed later.

Also, green practices are not limited to only one factor or attribute, such as percentage of recycled materials, but involve integration of several across the life cycle of a product or service. Even if a maximum is reached for one element, options for improvement are likely to remain for others. In addition, the relative sense in which the term green is used in this report captures the range of meanings given to it by different stakeholders in a way that is comparatively clear and consistent and retains the utility of the concept.

Green Procurement and Environmentally Preferable Purchasing

Finally, some may argue that green procurement as described here is simply a synonym for environmentally preferable procurement, or EPP, which was introduced in the 1990s (see " Federal Green Purchasing Initiatives " below). However, EPP refers to various specific programs and initiatives, usually involving explicit comparison of alternative products or services, whereas green procurement is used here in a broader sense that includes a variety of other approaches, such as zero-impact initiatives. Definitions of EPP used by various nonfederal entities often follow closely the federal description, but some entities define it differently.

A salient feature of the concept of green procurement described above is that it is multidimensional, usually involving an integrated evaluation of criteria such as cost, performance, and impact of a product or service with respect to a set of green factors over the entire life cycle , from design through disposal. These three dimensions—life cycle, green factors, and evaluation criteria—are discussed below, followed by a discussion of considerations relating to implementation.

Life Cycle Stages

The stages of the product or service life cycle can also be divided in various ways, but for purposes of this report, the following six stages will be discussed:

research and design, raw materials acquisition, manufacturing, distribution, operation or use, and disposal or end-of-life.

The relative importance of those stages will vary depending on the kind of product or service being considered. Raw materials acquisition, manufacturing, and disposal are unlikely to be direct factors in acquisition of services in many cases, but they will play an indirect role, depending on the degree to which the service provider engages in green product-procurement practices.

For example, some consultants may use only green IT products, such as those listed under the Energy Star or EPEAT labeling programs, and may follow green practices in end-of-life management of products they use. Some cleaning services may use environmentally preferable cleaning products. In the latter case, failure to use green products could also have direct consequences for the service recipient, for example if the products contained chemicals with adverse health effects.

Research and Design

All products and services that come to market are designed in some manner before they are produced, and that preliminary stage may also involve performing various types of research and development. New kinds of products may require a substantial research effort before they can be designed. Such activities may involve processes with significant environmental impacts. Also, the characteristics set at the design stage can affect impacts and other criteria throughout the life cycle. As with many features, green characteristics work best if they are built in rather than added on.

Nevertheless, this stage is often omitted in discussions of life cycle aspects of green procurement. That may be because in many cases, acquisitions are of products or services already available in the marketplace. However, institutional green procurement programs can have an influence at this stage, most obviously for acquisitions that require custom design and manufacture. For ready-made products and services, assessment may be made of the degree to which candidates for procurement were specifically designed both to reduce environmental impacts throughout the life cycle (sometimes called design for the environment) and to facilitate recycling and other aspects of end-of-life management (sometimes called design for recycling).

Raw Materials Acquisition

The kinds of materials from which a product is manufactured may substantially affect the environmental footprint of the product. For example, mining or logging may have low to high impact, depending on the practices of the companies involved, through energy and water use, waste production, and effects on health and ecosystems. Green guidelines and practices have been developed to reduce such impacts by changing the processes by and sources from which raw materials are obtained, including increasing the use of recycled and renewable resources. Examples are requirements and programs to reduce by-catch in commercial fishing, reduce mining pollution, and increase use of recycled content and biobased materials in products.

Manufacturing

The impacts of processes used in manufacturing products and developing services also vary. Manufacturing processes may differ in the efficiency of input use, the amount and kind of waste generated, and environmental effects on ecosystems and human health. Such impacts may be reduced by manufacturers through various means, ranging from improvements focusing on individual factors such as amounts and sources of energy used, to integrated approaches such as lean manufacturing techniques, which aim to reduce waste and improve efficiency throughout the manufacturing process.

Distribution

This life cycle stage includes the various processes involved in distributing a product or service to users once it has been manufactured or developed. It includes such things as packaging, marketing, transportation, storage, and sales. For commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products and services—that is, those that are ready-made and available to the general public, rather than those that are expressly manufactured for a buyer to custom specifications—this is usually the stage at which buyers can first assess costs and impacts of potential acquisitions.

In addition to manufacturers claims, various aids have been created by different government and private entities to assist both government and private-sector buyers in identifying green COTS products and services. For example, among federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides public access to databases of products assessed as environmental preferable through various criteria. The General Services Administration (GSA) also provides information on green products through its website. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has an online catalogue of biobased products listed under its BioPreferred program, which focuses on renewable biobased products. States such as California, Pennsylvania, and Washington have online guides to help buyers identify green products and services, as do some municipal government entities in states such as Minnesota, and organizations such as the National Association of Counties (NACO) and the Northwest Product Stewardship Council. Private-sector organizations such as Green Seal and the Green Electronics Council also provide lists of products. Such aids are discussed further in the " Labeling and Certification " section (see also Table 3 ).

Buyers purchasing custom rather than COTS products and services may have greater capability to ensure the use of green practices in various stages of the life cycle. This may be especially true for large institutions such as the federal government, large states, and major corporations, who are more likely than small purchasers to be able to use their buying power as leverage to achieve such goals.

Operation and Use

A range of impacts may occur at this stage, some of which may be apparent to the purchaser and some not. They include such things as energy use by appliances and vehicles, water use by plumbing fixtures; and release into indoor air of potentially harmful volatile chemicals (called off-gassing) by furniture, furnishings, and building materials.

The degree to which green practices are used at this stage also affects impacts. For example, some users may waste large amounts of paper, ink, and energy through inefficient or unnecessary printing practices; power management of computer systems may not be used effectively; and vehicles may be driven or maintained in ways that compromise efficiency measures.

Products also vary in the length of their useful life. Some, such as disposable cellular phones, may be designed to be discarded after a short period of use. Others, such as modular computers, may be specifically designed to be readily repaired and upgraded rather than discarded when they fail, or in response to technological advances. However, product maintenance and repair may also have environmental impacts, and repair rather than replacement may also affect performance.

Disposal or End of Life

The fate of a product after its useful life has ended may also have significant impacts. Products may be discarded into landfills, refurbished and reused, or recycled—disassembled and parts and materials recovered and reused. Each of those alternatives will have impacts that vary with the kind of product and the processes chosen. While reuse and recycling are generally considered environmentally preferable where possible, the ways in which those processes are carried out can vary significantly in impact. For example, computers and other electronics may be recycled for disposal. It may not be possible to determine before disposal how items will be recycled. Such "e-waste" is often exported. Recycling by recipients may be performed in ways that are dangerous to the health of workers and damaging to the local environment.

Another method used to reduce the impact of disposal is leasing or other forms of "product takeback" at the end of the life cycle. With this approach, a vendor of a product agrees to accept those disposed of by users and recycle them or make them available for reuse. An automobile trade-in is a classic example of this approach, but it is used increasingly with other kinds of products such as electronics.

Green Factors

The main green factors , the major determinants of the environmental footprint of a product or service, can be divided into two types, inputs and effects . Inputs discussed in this report include energy, materials, and water; environmental effects include those on ecosystems, health, and waste production. While green factors can be viewed in other ways, the set described here is likely to capture all the major attributes usually considered important.

Inputs

Energy

Energy is often the most prominently considered green factor, because of its economic importance and the environmental impacts of the various methods of generation. Some input of energy is involved at different life cycle stages for all products and services, but its importance may vary substantially across stages for different kinds of acquisitions.

The operation stage is arguably the easiest for which this input can be measured and controlled for any given product, and most attempts to rate or label products with respect to this input focus on such use energy. Examples of ratings are Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency (AFUE) for furnaces, Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER) for air conditioning, and EPA fuel economy estimates for motor vehicles. The most widely known labeling system is probably Energy Star. Programs aimed at energy conservation or efficiency in procurement, including Energy Star, tend to focus on use energy rather than that consumed in other life cycle stages. However, other programs may address energy use at other stages, such as the development of renewable or other green energy sources that may be used by manufacturers.

Energy used during other stages is called embedded energy or embodied energy . However, embodied energy may be used by some to refer to all energy used during the life cycle, including use energy. This is how it is defined by the Department of Energy (DOE). It may therefore be most helpful to distinguish between the two terms, defining embodied energy as total energy and embedded energy as total energy minus use energy; that is the usage adopted for this report. Impacts from life cycle stages other than use and operation may be called embedded impacts.

In some cases, embedded energy may be substantial. For example, concrete exterior walls in buildings may have some advantages over wood, but concrete has much higher embedded energy. However, there appears to be no widely accepted methodology for applying the concept broadly to purchasing decisions, and little information is available for many products. Some observers also argue that considering embedded energy as a separate factor can lead to erroneous conclusions, and that an integrated life cycle assessment is the best way to capture the total energy footprint of a product or service.

One complicating factor for measuring embedded energy is the nature of the energy sources used. For example, if a product with lower embedded energy is manufactured using nonrenewable sources of energy such as fossil fuels, or renewable sources that are produced in ways that have significant environmental impacts, such as on ecosystems, that product may have a greater overall environmental impact than an alternative product with higher levels of embedded energy from more sustainable sources.

Materials

The materials used in a product can contribute substantially to its environmental footprint. The choice and use of materials may have impacts on resource depletion, pollution, embodied energy, and health, among other factors. Green materials may have significant recycled content, be made from renewable biological resources (so-called "biobased" products), or be created with processes that use low amounts of energy and produce low amounts of pollutants. They may also be designed to reduce health risks such as those from off-gassed formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

For many kinds of products, for example paper, this factor may exhibit the highest potential impacts at life cycle stages other than use and operation. In such cases, embedded impacts may be of greater importance than use impacts.

Water

Water is a critical resource, and the adequacy of clean freshwater supplies is increasingly a matter of national and global concern. Water is also an important resource at many stages of the life cycles of various products and services. As with energy, its importance varies depending on the product or service and the stage of the life cycle. For example, one U.N. study has estimated that the impact on water resources from production of a pair of leather shoes is 1.6 times that for a ream of paper and 250 times that for a microchip. For none of these is water likely to be a significant resource at the use stage. That is not the case with other products, perhaps the most obvious being plumbing fixtures and irrigation equipment.

Embedded impacts are likely difficult to assess accurately for individual products and services for several reasons, such as regional variations in water supply and the degree to which used water is contaminated and requires processing before reuse. As with energy, most of the focus from the green-procurement perspective has been on the use stage, at which this input may be more readily measured and controlled. For example, the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT 1992, P.L. 102-486 ) established water-use standards for certain plumbing fixtures (42 U.S.C. 6295); EPA's Water Sense labeling program lists water-efficient plumbing fixtures and other products; and rebate incentives for water efficiency have been established in some states. However, attempts have been made to develop measures of what might be called embodied water (by analogy with embodied energy). One such approach is the "water footprint."

Effects

Ecosystem

The term ecosystem is often thought of popularly as referring to natural biological systems largely separate from human civilization. However, in reality humans are embedded in and rely on services provided by ecosystems for such things as freshwater, food and other biobased products, and oxygen, as well as less tangible services relating to quality of life, such as recreation and existence value.

Impacts of products and services on ecosystems therefore have broad application to green procurement. A full assessment would require consideration of a wide range of direct and indirect effects across all life cycle stages and spatial and temporal scales. That is likely to be difficult in many cases, and controversial in at least some.

Health

Several factors can influence the health impacts of products and services. Some impacts are related to the kinds of materials used, such as heavy metals, VOCs, asbestos, or other potentially toxic substances. Other factors, such as radiation, the quality of lighting, effectiveness of climate control equipment in buildings, and ergonomic design of furniture, can also have significant impacts on health.

Such impacts may occur at various stages. For example, the potentially toxic materials used in computers do not generally pose a health hazard for users, but they can pose hazards at both the manufacturing and disposal stages. For some materials, such as metals, impacts from the ways raw materials are originally acquired via mining operations and are processed, such as in smelters, can also pose health risks both to workers and to the public.

Waste

Waste reduction is a common theme of green purchasing programs. Impacts from wastes may occur in several ways. For example, they may be toxic, flammable, or corrosive. According to EPA, more than 46 million tons of hazardous wastes were generated in the United States in 2007.

However, even nonhazardous wastes can be environmentally harmful in ways such as the consumption of energy for disposal, impacts on ecosystems from disposal sites, and resource depletion in cases where recyclable waste is discarded. Impacts may occur at various stages of the life cycle in addition to the disposal phase for a given product or service. In fact, more than two-thirds of U.S. hazardous waste in 2007 was produced by the chemical manufacturing industry.

Evaluation Criteria

The discussion above describes the role of individual green factors, considered over the life cycle, in determining the environmental footprint of a product or service. However, such a description is not sufficient for making informed decisions about whether to acquire a particular product or service. An integrated assessment is needed that uses appropriate criteria. Cost and performance are important in addition to environmental impact (including on human health). Low environmental impact may be of little consequence if a product or service is so costly or performs so poorly in comparison to alternatives that it is not competitive in the marketplace. Other criteria such as availability may also be relevant.

Impact

An overall characterization of impact requires integration of individual impacts from the sets of inputs and effects across all the stages of the life cycle. Reversibility of the impacts must also be taken into account. For example, some chemical pollutants are far more persistent in the environment than others, and some ecosystems recover more quickly from disturbance than others. Some toxins accumulate in the bodies of humans and other species, whereas others are quickly metabolized. Depletion of nonrenewable resources is not reversible.

Cost

While the most obvious component of cost is price, an evaluation of costs across the life cycle includes the total monetary costs to the user of acquiring, operating, maintaining, and disposing of an item. Green purchasing evaluations can expose hidden costs, such as disposal costs, that may otherwise be invisible to those making the purchasing decisions. They may also include indirect costs borne by the purchaser such as medical expenses for hazardous items.

Consequently, a simple assessment of price can be misleading. For example, one study reported that several years ago, the New York Department of Sanitation rejected a proposed purchase of a new fluid for cleaning collection trucks, even though it was environmentally superior, because it cost $0.75 more per gallon than the fluid then in use. However, the price did not take into account other cost factors that would have shown that rather than costing more, the new cleaner would have led to substantial savings.

In addition, externalities may lead to costs borne broadly by the public that would not be reflected in the cost to the purchaser. For example, agroforestry practices that lead to erosion can have adverse impacts on fisheries or water supplies that may not be paid by the producer and therefore would not be passed on to the purchaser in the price of the product.

Performance

Performance refers to how well a product or service accomplishes the functions for which it was acquired. If a reduction in impacts is accompanied by a significant reduction in performance, acquisition may not be cost-effective.

A fairly common perception about green products and services is that they cost more and may not perform as well as standard products. However, there are many cases where green procurement may lead to the acquisition of products and services that are superior in performance to standard ones. This may be especially relevant given that according to a recent survey, most institutional purchasers rate product performance as the most important factor in making purchase decisions.

Life Cycle Analysis

A full examination of options in green procurement involves an integration of the evaluation criteria across the set of green factors and life cycle stages. That involves a life cycle assessment or analysis (LCA), which can be described as a method for analyzing the environmental impacts of something throughout its lifespan, from initial creation through destruction or disposal. This is also known as a "cradle-to-grave" evaluation. A general international standard for such assessments has been developed (ISO 14040 and 14044). Development of at least one U.S. life cycle impact assessment standard (SCS-002) has been initiated.

LCA usually consists of several stages: An initial stage defines the goals and scope of the analysis, including what is to be assessed, the context of the assessment, and the limits of the analysis. That is followed by an inventory of inputs and effects, an assessment of impacts, and an evaluation of the results. Some tools for making such assessments have also been developed, including the Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) tool developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). While it was developed for use in green building projects, the application is broadly applicable; for example, it has been adapted for use in USDA's BioPreferred program. Another example from the building sector is the Athena Institute's EcoCalculator.

An extension of the standard cradle-to-grave life cycle approach is called cradle-to-cradle. It has been described as an attempt to apply the principles of natural biological cycles to product cycles by creating an explicit connection between the end of a product's life cycle and the beginning.

Life cycle analysis can also help ensure that evaluation includes interactions and trade-offs among factors and life cycle stages. A classic example of interaction between inputs and effects is in buildings, where attempts to improve energy efficiency by using products that reduce leakage of air to the outside may permit the build-up of potentially harmful air pollutants, contributing to the phenomenon of "sick building syndrome."

Another example involves incandescent versus fluorescent lightbulbs. While the latter are widely recognized as more energy efficient, concerns have been raised about the extent to which the presence of mercury in the latter counterbalances their advantage in energy efficiency, by posing an environmental hazard from that toxic metal. Some life cycle analyses have found, however, that more mercury is released into the environment over the life cycle of an incandescent bulb, on average, than a fluorescent one, especially in areas where electricity is generated from coal.

An example involving trade-offs relating to the length of the operational stage of the life cycle is the relative impacts of concrete versus wood for the framing and walls of buildings. Concrete can be much more durable than wood and may have other potential benefits, such as fire safety, but the high embedded energy and other impacts of concrete can potentially offset such benefits in low-rise buildings where wood is an option.

Figure 2 depicts a conceptual model of the relationships among the green factors, life cycle stages, and evaluation criteria. In this three-dimensional graphical representation, each element is depicted as a dot on a horizontal matrix, with the criteria forming the third dimension. In making a full assessment using this model, a value for each criterion would need to be determined for each of the 36 elements in the matrix (in the graph, values would be represented by columns of different heights). That would need to be done for each candidate in an acquisition and the results compared to make a decision.

A model of such complexity may be limited in its usefulness in practice, especially for customers making purchase decisions. But it illustrates both some of the central features of green procurement, as discussed above, and some of the difficulties that can be involved in making an accurate assessment. For example, little information may exist in many cases about many of the elements in the matrix.

Also, alternative products and services being considered for a given acquisition may vary substantially in values for different elements and criteria in ways that are difficult to compare. However, such analyses can be used, for example, by trusted third parties who perform such analyses to determine if products meet green certification or labeling criteria, as is discussed in the next section. In addition, assessments may be facilitated by the development and application of standard models and techniques.

Implementing Green Procurement

The discussion above provides a conceptual framework for consideration of policy issues relating to green procurement that might come before Congress, in particular with respect to development, facilitation, and implementation of green procurement in the marketplace, and its adoption and implementation by federal agencies. Several points from the discussion above are particularly relevant to such development and implementation:

The term g reen procurement covers a range of approaches to acquisition of products and services that have a smaller-than-average environmental footprint. The reduction in the environmental footprint of products and services acquired through green-procurement practices may range from marginal to substantial (see Figure 1 ), depending on the specific policies and approaches taken, among other factors. A full assessment of a product or service involves an integrated evaluation of several factors across the life cycle of that product or service (see Figure 2 ). There are likely to be interactions and trade-offs among different green factors and life cycle stages that would need to be taken into account in any such assessment. Information for many of the elements involved may be difficult to assess accurately. As a result, assessments may be potentially very complex and may need to be made on substantially incomplete information or through use of proxy measures such as green labels. However, because choices are usually comparative—is one choice greener than the others?—full assessments may not usually be required for decisions. Nevertheless, failure to consider a sufficient set of elements may lead to erroneous conclusions.

Because of such characteristics and complexities, and other factors such as the ways in which programs, policies, and regulations tend to be developed by both governments and private industry, green procurement initiatives often emphasize particular attributes, such as recycled content, energy efficiency, water use or footprints, waste reduction at end of life, and reduction in hazardous chemicals.

Green procurement may also be complicated by other factors, such as legal requirements or commitments. For example, with respect to international free trade, one author has cautioned that federal "green purchasing regulations must be carefully crafted to avoid the appearance of providing hidden subsidies to U.S. contractors; otherwise, trade disputes will arise through the World Trade Organization."

Several approaches to implementing green purchasing programs have been developed by various government and private-sector organizations, and some examples are discussed below.

Labeling and Certification

One of the most widespread and easiest-to-use approaches to implementation of green procurement is through third-party labeling and certification programs. Examples include

Energy Star, a joint market-focused energy-efficiency program of EPA and DOE; EPEAT, a green electronics label developed by a private, non-profit organization from a recognized technical standard with partial funding from EPA and since adopted by the federal government; Green Seal, a private, non-profit environmental certification standard that covers a variety of products and services; and Cradle to Cradle (C2C), a private certification program intended to recognize green producers that "close the loop" between disposal and manufacturing, thereby approaching zero-impact.

One organization has identified more than 80 labels relating to green products and services in use in North America and more than 300 worldwide, and the use of labels appears to be on the rise. Such labels and certifications may vary in quality and emphasis. Some, such as EPEAT, may be based on technical standards promulgated or recognized by standard-setting organizations such as the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Such standards are developed through a voluntary consensus process involving experts and other stakeholders and are periodically updated. Other labels may be based on criteria developed internally by the labeling entity. If a labeling program has insufficient quality control, it may not reflect the promised environmental performance. In some cases, labels may not reflect any green characteristics, a practice known as "greenwash."

Some labels or certifications focus primarily on a single factor, such as energy use or water, and some involve evaluations of the designated factor only or largely during the operations stage of the life cycle. That is the case, for example, with Energy Star. A focus on a single factor and life cycle stage has benefits in comparative simplicity of evaluation and ease of understanding by potential users, but it could mask trade-offs involving interactions with other factors or effects at other life cycle stages.

Alternatively, labels may be based on a broad set of multifactor or multiattribute standards applied across the life cycle, such as EPEAT and Cradle-to-Cradle. However, such broad, integrative standards may be difficult and time-consuming to develop and keep up-to-date, and as a result, they may apply to relatively few products and may become obsolete. This may be one reason why the federal government uses a variety of certification or labeling systems in its agency-focused initiatives, and why many other organizations use third-party labels and standards as criteria for green procurement decisions, rather than performing the necessary assessments themselves.

Price and Cost Policies

Green products and services may cost more than standard equivalents. In at least some cases, higher acquisition costs may be offset by other savings, as discussed elsewhere in this report. Some organizations have implemented policies designed to address such problems. One approach used by various institutions is called price premiums, where institutional policies permit purchasers to pay a somewhat higher price for a product or service that meets green criteria. This approach can help overcome a common problem in the development of green products, namely that economies of scale may keep prices high as long as the market is small. However, the approach can be wasteful because it may reduce price-competitive incentives among providers. Usually, such green price premiums are comparatively small in practice, reportedly ranging from 3%-15% in one study of state and municipal governmental purchasing programs, but they do not appear to be used for federal green procurement programs. The use of this approach also appears to be declining, according to one recent study.

Some organizations address the problem of the kinds of offsets described above by using life cycle cost analyses to determine if savings at other life cycle stages compensate for higher acquisition costs for a product or service. Some state and local governments have also replaced policies based solely on bid prices with what is often called a "best-value" approach. The term may be given different meanings by different institutions, but generally it refers to an effort to take into account, in addition to price, a range of other considerations, such as performance and environmental impact, in making procurement decisions.

Other Approaches

Additional implementation methods used by various organizations may include establishing broad policy goals, use of training and awareness programs, and establishment of cross-functional "green teams" of purchasers, end-users, managers, and environmental experts to facilitate implementation. Another approach is to modify specifications so as to require specific green attributes, such as recycled content or low toxicity, for desired products and services. The way specifications are written may be especially important in avoiding inadvertently precluding green products (for example, specifications that would preclude use of recycled content by specifying "virgin" content).

Measuring Success

A major challenge for both governmental and nongovernmental green procurement programs is how to determine if they are successful in reducing environmental impacts while maintaining or improving cost-effectiveness and performance. Tools have been developed that can be used to estimate the effects of green procurement. Generally, these appear to focus on planning rather than performance assessment.

Success of single-attribute programs, such as increasing recycled content, may be relatively easy to measure. Others, such as those using complex labeling standards, may be more difficult. However, little information may be available even for single-attribute initiatives. For example, in 2001, the Government Accountability Office found that federal agencies could not track the purchases of products with recycled content required by federal law. According to a 2009 survey of governmental and nongovernmental organizations, only 20% of responding organizations with green-purchasing programs quantified the impacts of their programs.

The Green Electronics Council has attempted to improve assessments by requiring EPEAT subscribers to report sales of labeled products. The organization then used those figures, in conjunction with the criteria that labeled products are required to meet, to estimate reductions in toxic materials, solid waste, and energy use over the life cycles of the products. However, those figures are projections, not proven savings.

In 2001, the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing surveyed green procurement among federal and nonfederal government agencies in the United States and Canada. The institute found that one-third of municipal government agencies and one-fifth of nonfederal agencies had green procurement initiatives, but fewer than one in 20 federal agencies had programs. About two-thirds of agencies recognized the Energy Star label, even though energy was listed as a priority by only one-fifth. About 5% of agencies had established goals, but fewer than 20% of those had met them. The obstacles most commonly cited were lack of awareness, conflicting priorities, decentralization of procurement decisions, and inadequate guidance.

A more recent (2009) survey of public- and private-sector organizations suggests a substantial increase in the prevalence of initiatives, but not necessarily improved performance. About three-quarters reported having green procurement policies in 2009, much higher than previous figures, but the organizations also reported that those policies influence fewer than one-fifth of procurement budgets.

The city of Portland, OR, has performed several case studies of the costs and benefits of green-purchasing practices by various city bureaus. Among the purchases studied were transportation equipment and supplies, electricity, electronic equipment, inks, and paints. The city found environmental benefits in all cases. In some, such as antifreeze and inks, green products were found to exhibit performance superior to that of standard products. In most cases, the products reportedly reduced the city's acquisition or operational costs as well.

Barriers to Broader Adoption of Green Procurement Practices

As the discussion above implies, several barriers exist to the broader adoption of green procurement practices by both organizations and consumers. Some of those barriers are discussed below.

Incomplete and Imperfect Information

Information barriers tend to fall into two categories: lack of knowledge and incorrect information. The former includes both ignorance about the role of green procurement among potential practitioners and how it can be applied, and gaps in understanding about impacts. The latter includes both misperceptions about what green procurement is and how it can be applied, and misleading claims (greenwash) or other misuse. Training and education of procurement personnel and decisionmakers may be used to help reduce ignorance and misinformation, and regulations and guidelines from government agencies, among other methods, may be used to address misinformation and misuse. Both government and private organizations may also provide information and guidance to consumers, as discussed elsewhere in this report. However, considerable research and analysis may be needed to fill current gaps in understanding about impacts.

Lack of Common Standards

The wide range of meanings applied to green procurement and other practices, as well as the absence of broadly accepted assessment and implementation standards, may create both controversy and confusion that can impede the adoption of green procurement and the meeting of policy goals. It may also contribute to the proliferation of green labels of varying accuracy and value.

The apparent success of programs such as Energy Star and EPEAT provide evidence that this barrier can be overcome, and current efforts to develop LCA standards (see the section on " Life Cycle Analysis " above) may further help to reduce this impediment, but only if such a standard becomes commonly accepted and widely used. Adoption by large industry and government purchasers may facilitate that process.

Real, Perceived, and Hidden Costs

Among the more significant cost barriers are real and perceived cost premiums associated with green procurement. Other barriers include cost externalities—that is, costs that are born by persons other than the purchaser and are not included in the price —and situations in which financial interests of different parties involved are misaligned, which is sometimes referred to as the principal-agent problem. Such barriers may be especially difficult to overcome, except perhaps for misperceptions about cost.

Market and Technical Uncertainties

Uncertainties may include concerns about the stability of market demand for green products and services, which can vary with the costs of inputs such as energy, as well as risks that a nonstandard technology may not be effective in meeting green performance goals, and reluctance to invest in a significant immediate acquisition in a situation such as lighting where technologies are rapidly changing. Those barriers may also be particularly difficult to overcome.

Federal Green Purchasing Initiatives

As stated in the introduction to this report, federal initiatives relating to green purchasing of products and services can usefully be organized into two categories based on their primary focus:

agency-focused initiatives intended to facilitate the procurement of green products and services by federal agencies, and market-focused programs aimed at the availability of green products and services in the broader economy.

Those categories are not mutually exclusive. Programs that are primarily market-focused, such as Energy Star and BioPreferred, may also affect federal acquisitions. Information on green initiatives developed specifically for federal procurement, such as EPP (see text box below ), may be available to the public through an agency website or other source. Agency-focused initiatives may also influence the broader market in at least two other ways. First, nonfederal organizations may adopt some version of a federal initiative, as has happened with EPP. Second, the size of federal procurement operations—about $500 billion per year—means that federal green procurement programs have a significant potential to affect the availability of green products and services in the marketplace, as well as other aspects of the green economy. Given the size and potential impact of the agency-focused initiatives, most of this section addresses those activities rather than market-focused programs.

Market-Focused Programs

Several federal initiatives are either primarily market-focused or have significant market-focused components. Some of those programs are administered by EPA, and some by other agencies. Several are mentioned below in the section on " Preferences for Green Products and Services " and elsewhere in this report. While some of the programs are cited in EPA's EPP database, there does not appear to be a comprehensive central federal source for access to such information.

In addition to the guides and labeling programs developed by other federal agencies, the Federal Trade Commission has developed a set of general resources to assist consumers interested in acquiring green products. Perhaps the best known of these resources is the Green Guides. The stated purpose of these voluntary guides is to assist industry in ensuring that environmental marketing claims made for various products and services are not false or misleading.

Agency-Focused Initiatives

Modern federal efforts in green procurement focus largely on acquisition of products. Those efforts arguably began with the enactment of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA, P.L. 89-272, as amended), which set requirements for federal purchase of products with recovered or recycled content. Since then, various statutes, regulations, executive orders, policy documents, and agency programs have required or encouraged federal agencies to purchase specific products or types of products because of their environmental attributes, as discussed below.

Preferences for Green Products and Services

Some federal government-wide initiatives focus narrowly on specific kinds of products. Others, commonly called preferences, are more general and pertain to types of goods and services that share specified environmental attributes. Currently, there are eight such preferences:

alternative fuels and alternative fuel vehicles, alternatives to ozone-depleting substances, alternatives to toxic and priority chemicals, biobased products, energy-efficient products, environmentally preferable purchasing, or EPP (see text box above ), EPEAT products, and recovered or recycled materials.

Currently, agencies are required to purchase alternative fuels and alternative-fuel vehicles, and biobased, Energy Star and energy efficient, EPEAT-registered, and recycled-content products, although acquisitions may be exempt in specified circumstances. Agencies must consider purchasing alternatives to toxic and priority chemicals and ozone-depleting substances, and EPP products and services.

Only EPP and EPEAT attempt to provide an integrative approach to green procurement. The others each address only one or a few attributes. However, EPP and EPEAT, along with alternatives to toxic and priority chemicals, are also the only of those preferences that have no specific basis in enacted statutes.

Most of the preferences listed above apply only to products, despite the fact that about half of federal procurement spending is for services (see Table 1 ). EPP applies to both products and services, although little guidance appears to be available from EPA with respect to the latter. That is especially true for professional, scientific, and technical services, which comprise about half of federal procurement expenditures for services. The energy-efficiency preference also applies to services, specifically for energy-savings performance contracts, in which agencies partner with energy service companies to improve savings in energy use by the agencies. Preferences may also apply to products used by service providers.

Consistent with the current federal emphasis on single attributes, the Obama Administration's Office of Federal Procurement Policy recently described "green purchasing" as including, although not limited to, procurement of "recycled materials; energy-efficient materials or appliances; water saving processes or appliances; environmentally preferable processes, materials, or appliances; and biobased products or materials." EPA, in contrast, characterizes green procurement as essentially synonymous with EPP: "Green Purchasing refers to the practice of preventing waste and pollution by considering environmental impacts, along with price, performance, and other traditional selection factors, when making purchasing decisions."

In addition to implementing the requirements mentioned above, some agencies have broader responsibilities. OMB provides broad guidance through various policy instruments, such as implementing instructions for executive orders, policy letters, and planning documents. Some of those responsibilities are shared with the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive, housed at EPA.

For some kinds of preferences, criteria, which may be standards or even lists of products, are set by specific agencies: DOE and EPA for energy, USDA for biobased, and EPA for recovered materials and certain other types (see Table 2 ). The implementing instructions for Executive Order 13423 state that agencies should use EPA's WaterSense-labeled products and programs to meet water-efficiency requirements, and that DOE will provide guidance on alternative fuels. With respect to hazardous and toxic substances, EPA is designated as the lead agency in the implementing instructions, but there appears to be no specific requirement for development of a list of alternatives. Rather, the emphasis is on reduction in the use of such constituents by individual agencies. EPEAT is a private-sector program but was developed with the assistance of EPA.

There are several government databases containing information about green products, and several of them are publicly accessible. EPA has developed a database listing EPP product and service categories that both agencies and the public can use in making green-purchasing decisions. EPA also has lists of products elsewhere on its website that have been identified under other programs, such as the Significant New Alternatives Program (SNAP) for alternatives to ozone-depleting substances and WaterSense. The USDA has also developed a database listing renewable biobased products currently designated under its BioPreferred label.

GSA provides access to green products and services through its purchasing system available to government agencies. Its online system identifies products registered or identified according to 14 standards and other sets of criteria, including federal requirements such as those for energy, recycled content, emissions, and biobased products, as well as nonfederal programs such as EPEAT and Green Seal.

GSA is also generally responsible for disposing of surplus equipment and other items designated as personal property by federal agencies. However, there appear to be no provisions for GSA to recycle such property if it is not transferred or sold. Property that cannot be used, donated, or sold is returned to the originating agency for disposal. Agencies may have procedures for recycling of such property.

Table 3 lists the kinds of green product and service certifications and labels available through the GSA online catalog or schedule and EPA's EPP database. As the table shows, there are more than 20 designations altogether in the two databases, covering several green factors. Both databases contain integrative or multiattribute labels, but most labels focus on only one or two attributes. Most designations refer to specific standards by various agencies and organizations, but the GSA schedule contains four that are more general: Recycled, Biobased, Non-Toxic, and Environmentally Friendly. Unlike the GSA catalog, the EPA database does not list product choices directly but provides electronic links to separate lists, including the GSA schedule.

The Office of the Federal Environmental Executive also produces a database of green products as a tool for federal agencies to use in procurement. It contains green products designated by EPA, USDA, and DOE, with respect to Energy Star, FEMP, WaterSense, recycled and biobased content (including BioPreferred), alternative fuels, and SNAP, as well as EPEAT, with links to relevant sources.

Federal Performance in Green Procurement

Gauging the degree to which the various federal green-purchasing requirements have been applied is difficult. Agencies vary greatly in the amounts of procurement they engage in (see, for example, Table 4 ), with the Department of Defense (DOD) accounting for almost three-quarters of total federal procurement spending in FY2008, more than 15 times as much as the next highest-spending agency, DOE.

DOD's dominance was also reflected in specific areas of substantial procurement spending that have been the subject of federal green-procurement initiatives—transportation equipment (e.g., alternative fuels ), information technology (electronic stewardship ), and building construction (green building ). Agency totals for procurement spending for those three industry groups are also presented in the table. Among them, the most comprehensive federal initiatives currently for green procurement are for information technology (see text box above ).

OMB requires agencies to report annually on their activities in green procurement. However, those reporting requirements appear to be largely qualitative. There does not appear to be any broad requirement for or practice of federal agencies reporting the extent of their green purchases.

However, quantitative reporting is required for the recycled content and alternative fuels preferences. For the former, reports can be generated through the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS-NG). Such purchases were reported as totaling $35.9 billion in FY2008, comprising about 7% of total procurement expenditures. Less than 1% of those purchases, totaling $333 million, were reported as exempt from the requirement because of performance, price, or time constraints. Even those data are limited, since many relevant purchases are not included because they fall below the reporting threshold or for other reasons.

For alternative fuels, DOE requires agencies to report annually on vehicle acquisitions and fuel consumption. According to DOE, agencies largely met or exceeded the requirements for FY2007, acquiring almost twice the required number of alternative fuel vehicles, and exceeding the target for alternative fuel consumption by almost 20%.

A January 2009 report to Congress from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy describes agency compliance with the green purchasing requirements in E.O. 13423. As part of that compliance, OMB requires agencies to have "formal, written, documented green purchasing plans, policies and/or procedures for the implementation of the statutory and executive order requirements to purchase green products and services." According to the 2009 report, all agencies have such plans in place and have demonstrated compliance in "representative acquisitions."

Plans for at least some agencies are comprehensive. For example, DOD has developed a department-wide strategy that requires each organization involved in procurement to have a green procurement plan and to integrate or coordinate that plan with the environmental management system (EMS) that agencies were also required to establish under that and other executive orders (see text box above ). The Defense Logistics Agency also provides both a database of products analogous to that of GSA and a reporting capability for green procurement that appears to be more extensive than that available through FPDS-NG.

DOE guidance on green procurement also stipulates that plans should be integrated with the agency's EMS. The guidance also lays out reporting requirements.

The January 2009 report cited above stated that most agencies were monitoring compliance and developing corrective actions where necessary. However, the report also recognized the difficulties with collection of data on green purchasing but stated that new requirements are being drafted for the FPDS-NG that would permit routine capture of green-purchasing data.

Implementation and performance of green procurement programs are also tracked by OMB through agency submissions for performance scorecards on energy, transportation, and environment. The environmental submissions include information on EMS, green purchasing, green buildings, electronic stewardship, compliance plans, and implementation strategies. Agencies can receive one of three different scores—green (denoting success), yellow (mixed performance), or red (serious flaws). Of the 25 agencies in the January 2009 summary, only four scored green for their overall environmental performance—Commerce, DOE, EPA, and Treasury. Nine scored yellow, and 11 scored red, including DOD and GSA. GSA's scorecard noted deficiencies in green procurement auditing, implementation of an agency-wide plan, and compliance monitoring. Specific information relating to the scorecard rating was not available for DOD.

Issues for Congress

The discussion above raises several policy issues that Congress may consider in examining federal efforts in green procurement and determining whether any legislative initiatives might be appropriate. Questions raised include the following:

What, if any, are the most useful and appropriate policy goals for green procurement? Are the means by which different green-procurement preferences, programs, and other initiatives have been established the most appropriate for meeting policy goals? How effectively are agency implementation and performance of green procurement being assessed? How successful are current programs and initiatives at meeting policy goals? Are policies on the acquisition of green services sufficient? Are the preferences and the methods of implementing them sufficiently harmonized and integrated? Are there significant gaps in the various federal preferences for types of green products and services? Are there implementation methods not currently used by the federal government that should be considered? Is training of procurement officials sufficient?

The issues are explored and further characterized below.

Green Procurement Policy Goals

Green procurement requirements and other initiatives can be used to help meet several policy goals. Perhaps the most obvious and direct is the reduction of the environmental footprint of federal activities with respect to a set of green factors such as those described in this report. Related to that is cost savings through reduction of inputs such as energy, water, and materials. Another goal could be to use procurement leverage or market-focused initiatives to actively facilitate the development of green industries and other aspects of the green economy. Also, federal programs could help provide better ways to meet such goals, for example through facilitating the maturation of life cycle assessment methods and the development of standards.

Some broad goals are contained in executive orders and related policy documents. Congress might find useful an integrated assessment of such goals and options for achieving them. Also, some observers may question more broadly whether green procurement is an appropriate focus for federal policy. A discussion of the complex and often long-standing controversies about the desirability of green policy goals in general is beyond the scope of this report, but an assessment of green procurement policy might include an evaluation of the appropriateness of the goals Congress has already established in various statutes, as well as those specifically addressed in executive orders issued by Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, in addition to new policy proposals.

Also, given the lack of a commonly accepted characterization of what green procurement involves, especially in the context of other concepts and approaches such as sustainable procurement, an examination of green procurement and other relevant concepts, including whether they should be defined in legislation, might also be considered as part of an examination of policy goals. In addition, an assessment might include examination of how green procurement policy goals interact with other goals of federal procurement policy.

Green Procurement Policy Instruments

The particular method used by the federal government to establish a green-procurement policy or requirement can have implications both for the degree to which it will be implemented and the ease with which it may be modified or revoked. In general, statutory requirements such as those for recycled content and alternative fuels are likely to be more fully implemented than a conditional preference such as EPP established by executive order but not by an enacted statute.

Among the various methods available, policy document s provide the most flexibility but the least potential stability, as the executive branch can modify or revoke them at any time without necessarily considering congressional input or public comments. Statutes, in contrast, provide significant stability because Congress must enact legislation to revoke or modify them.

However, the comparative difficulty of changing statutes may also make it more difficult for government to adjust policies established by them when external conditions change. That may be especially the case if the statute establishes a fixed design standard rather than a flexible performance requirement. For example, a statutory requirement to use a specific kind of alternative fuel might impede adoption of emerging alternatives that may be substantially better for meeting energy-policy goals. However, a specific design standard is often simpler to implement than a performance standard.

Executive orders and regulations based on them may be instituted, revised, or revoked without congressional action, but Congress has the opportunity to review executive orders and regulations before they take effect, and the public generally has the opportunity during the rulemaking process to comment on proposed regulations or proposed modifications to existing regulations. Those two instruments therefore arguably fall somewhere between policy documents and enacted statutes in terms of their flexibility and stability, but unless they are specifically based on enacted statutes, they also give primary authority to the executive branch for any resulting green procurement requirements, policies, and programs.

Given the broad range of green-purchasing preferences (see the section on " Preferences for Green Products and Services ") and the variation in the strength of their applicability, stability, and flexibility, Congress may opt to examine whether any modifications would be desirable. In some cases, Congress has chosen to create statutory authority for an existing preference, as when it provided a statutory basis in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 ( P.L. 107-171 ) for preferences for biobased products that already existed under executive orders and regulations.

Performance Assessment

The methods currently used to track agencies' performance in green procurement, including those contained in environmental scorecards and reports to Congress, focus largely on processes, not outcomes. They tend to examine whether agencies have programs and policies in place rather than quantitative measures of the results of those programs and policies. Also, to the extent that reporting requirements are fragmented, it may be difficult for Congress to assess the degree to which agencies are successfully engaging in integrated green-procurement activities that adequately address interactions among the various green factors across the life cycles of products and services.

Agency environmental management systems (see EMS text box above ) could provide a mechanism for integrated performance tracking and assessment, but only if agencies collect appropriate life cycle data on relevant acquisitions, including procurement amounts, useful life, and end-of-life management. OMB has directed agencies to consider life cycle costs in procurement planning, but the degree to which the information they collect for that purpose would need to be supplemented to be useful for EMS analyses is not clear.

Program Evaluation

While performance assessment is important for determining how well existing programs are being implemented, it does not provide a method for examining how well a program or a set of programs is meeting intended policy goals. Some entities have performed studies about outcomes from programs relating to federal green purchasing preferences, but there does not appear to have been any broader, independent examination of the success of those programs and initiatives in meeting broader policy goals such as those discussed above. Such an examination might be useful to Congress in determining whether programs should be modified, expanded, or replaced.

Acquisition of Services

Roughly half of all federal procurement spending is for services. However, many of the green purchasing preferences apply only to products. For example, while recovered-content products are preferred in contracts for goods valued at over $10,000, they are preferred in contracts for services only for solid waste management.

Such restricted applicability may limit the ability of the federal government to use its purchasing power to leverage the availability and cost-effectiveness of green products and services in the marketplace, while broader use of such leveraging may help stimulate the development of green industries, to the extent that is a policy goal. However, the cost and effectiveness of such efforts is not clear.

Some recent proposals are seen as having had the potential to extend the product preferences to additional service contracts, although none have yet been so extended. The George W. Bush Administration proposed substituting green products for equivalent non-green products in the "performance" of service contracts. That proposal could have required contractors to use green products when doing work for the government even when that work did not involve the supply or delivery of products to federal agencies or facilities. However, the proposal was never finalized.

President Obama's Executive Order on "Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance" (E.O. 13514) contains provisions that could potentially have a similar effect. However, it is unclear whether they will be interpreted to such effect in either regulations or other policy implementation, and Congress does not appear to have provided any general guidance to agencies on the applicability of green purchasing preferences and programs to various services.

Integration and Harmonization of Green Procurement Initiatives

The federal approach to green procurement is arguably largely piecemeal and fragmented. The emphasis has largely been on single-attribute preferences, with the exception of EPP, which was designed in a way that could permit it to serve as a framework for an integrated, life cycle approach to federal green procurement. However, it has been implemented as just one among the various preferences, and a comparatively weak one. It has no specific basis in enacted statute and no requirement for formal determination of exemptions.

Additionally, there appears to be significant ambiguity about which type of green product or service agencies should procure in situations where multiple types could meet their needs. For example, the FAR requires agencies to acquire recovered-content products instead of biobased ones when both types would meet agency needs. However, no similar guidance exists for the other types of preferred products and services discussed in this report. That leaves agencies without guidance in determining whether, for example, they should procure Energy Star or FEMP-designated products, or recovered-content or environmentally preferable products. Such issues could potentially be addressed through an interagency mechanism such as the Interagency Sustainability Steering Committee established under E.O. 13423 and its working group on acquisition and materials management. An examination of the role of these bodies may be useful in determining how best to effect improved integration and harmonization of the various initiatives.

Possible Gaps in Current Preferences

While EPP is arguably broad enough in concept to include all the factors involved in green procurement, its current limitations in comparison with single-attribute preferences have led to some gaps in practice in the coverage of the green factors and life cycle approach discussed in this report. Three gaps that are particularly notable are

the focus of the energy-efficiency preference on use (or operational) energy rather than life cycle energy, the lack of an explicit preference with respect to water use and footprints, and the absence of specific green requirements for end-of-life management for government property such as information technology.

Also, EPP is among the weakest of the preferences, since it does not require any specific percentages or amounts of environmentally preferable acquisitions and is not accompanied by any requirement for contractor certification.

At present, there is also no single, generally accepted, multiattribute life-cycle-based certification or labeling system that procurement officials can use for all green products and services, as, for example, EPEAT provides for information technology. There is not even a single, well-coordinated list of green products for federal agencies to use, but rather several lists maintained by different agencies. In the absence of such resources and stronger requirements, significant gaps in preferences are liable to persist and the federal green procurement process is likely to remain relatively complex and opaque. However, given the complexities of the procurement process, the potential for success and possible disadvantages of bridging those gaps are not clear and might be difficult to ascertain.

Additional or Different Implementation Mechanisms

Some foreign, state, and local governments have mechanisms for implementing green procurement that the federal government does not use. To the degree that Congress finds the current level of green procurement by federal agencies inadequate, or agencies have difficulties implementing green procurement, Congress could promote additional or different implementing mechanisms. Doing so could including granting agencies additional legal authorities.

Training of the Acquisition Workforce

Given concerns that have been expressed about the capabilities of the acquisition workforce, Congress could explore whether the current workforce can adequately implement existing or proposed requirements and policies pertaining to green procurement. Certain requirements, most notably those involving environmentally preferable products, may be difficult for the existing workforce to implement because agencies must consider multiple attributes of products when determining which product to purchase. This is a more complex determination than ascertaining whether a product possesses a single attribute, such as energy efficiency, and agencies might need information about vendors' production methods to make such determinations. Proposed requirements focused on products' sustainability or life cycle costs could be difficult to implement for similar reasons.