The EPA recently announced a proposed update to its Recommendations of Specifications, Standards, and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing, which help federal government purchasers and other buyers use private sector standards and ecolabels to buy products that are more sustainable and climate-friendly and contain safer chemical ingredients.

 

This update marks the first time in nearly 10 years that the EPA has comprehensively evaluated standards and ecolabels to determine whether to add them to these recommendations.

The recommendations help identify thousands of products and services across 35 categories that conserve energy or water, include more recycled content, or reduce the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and single-use plastics. By helping federal purchasers identify and procure environmentally preferable products and services, the recommendations can save taxpayers money, reduce climate impacts, and prevent pollution.

Recommendations must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• There must be a publicly available and current (i.e., updated in the last 3 months) directory/registry of products/services conformant to the standard or ecolabel.
• All standards and ecolabels are required to demonstrate they have a competent certification program—via either accreditation or the alternative pathway provided in Section III of the EPA’s Framework for the Assessment of Environmental Performance Standards and Ecolabels.

Life-cycle assessment (LCA)

Companies interested in purchasing or producing sustainable products should familiarize themselves with LCAs, which are a "cradle-to-grave" approach for assessing the environmental impacts of the life of a product. This begins with the gathering of raw materials from the earth to create the product and ends when all materials are returned to the earth. LCAs evaluate all stages of a product's life from the perspective that they’re interdependent, meaning one operation leads to the next. LCAs enable the estimation of the cumulative environmental impacts resulting from all stages in the product life cycle, often including impacts not considered in more traditional analyses (raw material extraction, material transportation, ultimate product disposal, etc.). By including the impacts throughout the product life cycle, LCAs provide a comprehensive view of the environmental aspects of the product or process and a more accurate picture of the true environmental trade-offs in product and process selection.  

Current proposed updates

The update proposes adding 14 standards and ecolabels to the recommendations across 3 new product categories, covering health care, laboratories, and clothing and uniforms, as well as expanding the existing food service ware sub-category.

“Updating the Recommendations ensures the power of federal procurement, which accounted for more than $700 billion in annual spending last year alone, continues to advance the federal government’s effort to purchase products and services that are sustainable and climate friendly,” said Jennie Romer, deputy assistant administrator for pollution prevention in the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, according to an Agency news release.

“If finalized, the updates to the Recommendations would give federal purchasers and other buyers new guidance and options for purchasing sustainable products and services in four categories, which EPA proposes to divide into nine sub-categories, including by expanding the existing sub-category for food service ware,” the news release adds. “The Recommendations currently include only one recommended ecolabel in the food service ware sub-category, which covers compostable products. If finalized, the updated Recommendations would include three additional standards and ecolabels for food service ware, covering products that are reusable, certified compostable and certified recyclable. EPA is also providing a new resource that outlines current best practices for the procurement of food service ware sub-categories, which is available on EPA’s website.”

The “EPA assessed the environmental sustainability of the third-party standards and ecolabels under the Framework for the Assessment of Environmental Performance Standards and Ecolabels, and also assessed for a third-party certification program to verify product conformance.”

The EPA is also proposing to remove seven standards or ecolabels because they don’t meet these new requirements, they’re discontinued, or they’re no longer required by regulation.

Selling sustainable products and services to the federal government

Industry interested in selling products or services to the federal government is advised to start with the Selling Greener Products and Services to the Federal Government webpage.

Additionally, the EPA advises vendors to market their products to government purchasers and encourage government agencies to buy environmentally preferable products by:

• Referencing the sustainable acquisition policies and guidance located in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the U.S. General Services Administration’s (GSA) Green Procurement Compilation, or the Recommendations of Specifications, Standards, and Ecolabels; and
• Providing agencies with information about the environmental preferable attributes of specific products or services.

For more information, see the EPA Environmentally Preferrable Purchasing Resources website.