• FGC Purchasing Goals
• Reducing Your Purchasing Footprint
• Case Studies (Success Stories)

FGC Purchasing Goals

Develop, Implement, and Maintain:

• A green purchasing policy that covers applicable product types under the Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines.
• A green cleaning policy that addresses sustainable cleaning systems and products, chemical concentrate and dilution systems, proper training, minimized use of antimicrobial hand soaps, and reduced impacts on indoor air quality.
• An integrated pest management policy that addresses pest control through integrated methods, inspections, populations monitoring, and a pest control need evaluation.
• Pollinator habitat that will allow pollinators, such as bees, butterflies and birds to flourish locally.
• A green meeting and events policy that reduces the environmental impacts associated with travel, hotel accommodations, food services and event activities.
• A green transportation policy that incorporates SmartWay-certified fleet vehicles and freight shipped by an EPA SmartWay partner.
• A policy limiting the use of federal funds to purchase bottled water.

Relative to your baseline, achieve a 5% increase or reduction in the following activities:

• Increase the recycled content of purchased office paper products
• Increase the percentage of green cleaning products purchased
• Decrease the pounds of pesticides purchased
• Increase the amount of pollinator habitat planted or enhanced.
• Increase the number of hosted meetings and events delivered under a Green Meeting Policy
• Reduce the gallons of bottled water purchased with federal funds.

Reducing Your Purchasing Footprint

Office Products

Fact: Switching from 30% to 100% recycled copy paper saves 589 million gallons of water, 195,990 tons of wood, and 39 million lbs of solid waste annually, which is the equivalent of the trash carried by 1,408 garbage truck. And every 1,000 tons of paper collected, processed and re-manufactured creates 7 U.S. jobs.

• Environmentally Preferable Purchasing - Office Supplies
• Purchase 100% post-consumer recycled content office paper and other paper products
• Purchase recyclable or compostable office products whenever possible
• Purchase non-toxic office products
• Purchase green products and green services

Bottled Water

• Implement a Policy to Not Purchase Bottled Water for employees (i.e. water cooler groups or individuals), meetings (at your facility's meeting rooms or conference center), and/or events (meetings or conferences at hotels in commercial spaces)
• Eliminate your purchase of bottled water for employees (i.e. water cooler groups or individuals), meetings (at your facility's meeting rooms or conference center), and/or events (meetings or conferences at hotels in commercial spaces)

Fleet

• Environmentally Preferable Purchasing - Fleets
• Purchase or lease alternative fuel vehicles
• Choose cleaner, fuel efficient vehicles (SmartWay)
• Purchase or lease alternative fuel vehicles

Pest Management/Landscaping

• Environmentally Preferable Purchasing - Landscaping
• Implement an integrated pest management program/policy
• Use native plants that require less water, pesticides, and fertilizer
• Use compost to decrease need for fertilizers and pesticides

Pollinator Habitat

Fact: Honey bee pollination adds over $15 billion in value to agricultural crops each year; in fact, one-third of the food we eat depends on pollinators. Yet, pollinators are in precipitous decline. From April 2015-April 2016, beekeepers lost 44% of their honeybee colonies.

• Understand the Pollinator Partnership Action Plan and your facility's role in it, released by the White House and federal agencies in June 2016.
• Implement the guidance on Supporting the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators (PDF)(51 pp, 2.45 MB, About PDF) issued by the White House Council on Environmental Quality for federal facilities.
• Invite pollinators to your facility's grounds by planting a pollinator friendly habitat on site. Use these Eco-Regional Planting Guides Exit to select the pollinator plants appropriate to your eco-region.
• Turn to EPA's pollinator resources.
• If your facility already has pollinator habitat, you can register it in the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge Exit which includes a map of pollinator habitat around the world.

Cleaning

• Environmentally Preferable Purchasing - Cleaning
• Use cleaning products with EPA's Safer Choice label
• Purchase products in bulk or highly concentrated products to decrease packaging

Meetings/Events

• Environmentally Preferable Purchasing - Meetings and Conferences
• Establish and implement a green meeting policy (Example: EPA Region 9 Policy)
• Establish a policy not to purchase bottled water at meetings and events
• Eliminate the use of bottled water for meetings and events
• Use new media and electronic technology to cut down paper usage
• Ask your hotel and meeting venue to provide services for recycling and composting
• Choose a location that decreases need for travel and is easily accessible by public transportation

Building & Construction

• Environmentally Preferable Purchasing - Building and Construction
• Purchase non-toxic and recycled content carpeting
• Design or renovate building to decrease energy usage, water usage, and waste generated

Renewable Energy

• Purchase renewable electricity or renewable energy certificates (RECs). Learn more in the Guide to Purchasing Green Power (PDF) (60 pp, 2.9MB)
• Design and install on-site renewable technologies
• Identify rebates and incentives for your renewables and energy efficiency projects

Measurement

• EPA Recycled Content (ReCon) Tool
• Managing and Transforming Waste Streams: A Tool for Communities
• Green Cleaning Pollution Prevention Calculator
• EPA Resource Conserving Landscaping Calculator
• NIST BEES (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) Software for selecting building materials
• Green Power Equivalency Calculator - Power Profiler
• Energy Cost Calculators for Energy-Efficient Products

Recognition

• Energy Star Awards
• Green Power Leadership Awards
• Department of Energy (DOE) Management Awards
• Federal Energy and Water Management Award

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Case Studies (Success Stories)

• Case Studies in Green Purchasing
• Education and Outreach Campaign Reduces Paper Use
• Defense Logistics Agency Offers Re-refined Motor Oil (PDF)(16 pp, 2.4 MB, About PDF)
• Green Cafeterias
• NASA's Recycled-Content Product Procurement
• View EPA's webinar on Pollinator Habitat & Food Security: What's All the Buzz About? recorded on June 23^rd, 2016

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