PUBLIC PROCUREMENT NEWS

  

News

12 December 2013

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency seeks public input into procurement guidelines

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing draft guidelines that will help the federal government buy greener and safer products. In response to broad stakeholder interest, the EPA is seeking public input on these draft guidelines and a potential approach to assessing non-governmental environmental standards and ecolabels already in the marketplace.

“As the largest purchaser in the world, the U.S. government is working to reduce its environmental footprint,” said Jim Jones, Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “The government buys everything from furniture to lighting to cleaning products. These guidelines will make it easier for federal purchasers to meet the existing goal of 95 percent sustainable purchases while spurring consumers and the private sector to use and demand safer and greener products.”

The draft guidelines were developed following several sessions with a wide range of stakeholders on how the federal government can be more sustainable in its purchasing, and are designed to assist federal purchasing decision makers in more consistently using existing non-governmental environmental performance standards and ecolabels.

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