Climate & U.S. Sustainable Procurement

A knowledge center to support Federal sustainable procurement and the Sustainable Procurement Community of Practice, a forum for contract management and acquisition professionals to shape practice.

Community of Practice

Knowledge Center

Sustainable Procurement Tools

World Bank Overview of Green Reforms and Sustainable Procurement in IPF Projects
Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative (ASU) - Producing actionable knowledge about sustainable purchasing globally
Green Procurement Compilation (GSA) - a comprehensive green purchasing resource designed for federal contracting personnel and program managers. It consolidates and organizes information from federal environmental programs in one place, saving you from visiting multiple websites.
Comprehensive Procurement Guideline (CPG, EPA) promotes a system approach to reducing materials use and the associated environmental impacts over the materials’ entire life cycle.
EPA’s Recommendations of Specifications, Standards, and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing (EPA's Sustainable Marketplace)
GSA Advantage! Environmental Aisle

Recent Executive Orders

EO 14057: Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability
EO 14008: Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad
EO 13990: Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science To Tackle the Climate Crisis
EO 14027: Establishment of the Climate Change Support Office
EO 14030: Climate-Related Financial Risk
EO 14037: Strengthening American Leadership in Clean Cars and Trucks

Key Documents and Resources

Unlocking Value Through Sustainable Procurement, University of Tennessee, Haslam School of Business, School of Supply Chain
EPA’s GHG Management Self-Assessment/Benchmarking Resource, US EPA
Federal Environmental Symposium, taking place virtually March 28 – 31. This year’s conference is focused on helping agencies meet sustainability goals set by the Biden-Harris Administration. Register here. View the agenda here.
Greenhouse Gas Management – Federal Policy Overview
- Provides an overview of the federal policy environment. Learn about how greenhouse gas disclosures and reduction targets are currently tracked; Executive Orders and Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Cases, and GSA policies that regulate GHG.
Greenhouse Gas Management – Begin Reducing Your Emissions Now
- Provides an overview of how to begin reducing GHG emissions, including:
  - how your company can become more energy-efficient;
  - how your company can buy green power; and
  - how to manufacture, buy or sell products that meet EPA recommended specifications, standards or ecolabels.

Key Documents and Resources -cont.-

A 5-Point Plan for Reducing Your Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions - Harvard Business Review
Greenhouse Gas Management – Completing the GHG Inventory Development Process
- Provides an overview of the GHG inventory development process, how to set a GHG reduction target, and reporting progress against the target.
Sustainable Procurement: Building Vocabulary To Accelerate The Federal Procurement Conversation (Steve Schooner and Evan Matsuda)
GSA Helps Federal Agencies Meet Sustainability and Climate Adaptation Goals
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) 20400, Sustainable procurement (2017, English)
The IPCC - and the new/hot 2021 report
The Paris Agreement
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG's)
FAR Clauses for Provision of ENERGY STAR Certified Products
FAR Clauses for Provision of Products Which Don’t Contain High Global Warming Potential Chemicals
DOD Request for Information on Sustainability and Climate Related Disclosures
GSA Steps to Reduce Embodied Carbon in GSA Design and Construction Projects

GSA/EPA Training on How to Calculate GHG Emissions and Set Climate Impact Reduction Targets: (Available in October at: interact.gsa.gov/)
EPA Center for Corporate Climate Leadership, resource center to support organizations in greenhouse gas (GHG) measurement and management
EPA’s Simplified GHG Emissions Calculator
EPA’s Guide to Greenhouse Gas Management for Small Businesses and Low Emitters
Climate Disclosure Project
Global Reporting Initiative
Science Based Targets Initiative
EPA ENERGY STAR Industrial Program
EPA Recommendations of Specifications, Standards, and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing

General Reading

The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, David Wallace-Wells
The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here, Hope Jahren
All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katharine K. Wilkinson
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, Elizabeth Rush
All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change, Michael Klare

Partners, The Coalition of Willing

EPA Updated Resources to Aid Federal Purchasers

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an updated Framework for the Assessment of Environmental Performance Standards and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing under its Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) program, and a webpage highlighting ecolabel criteria that address perfluoroalkyl or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These actions are a key step in implementing President Biden’s Executive Order on Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs through Federal Sustainability and the accompanying Federal Sustainability Plan.

Climate Foundations Coaching Program

Eight Month Virtual Coaching Course
From the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council
Procurement is on the front line of an organization’s climate strategy.

Free Sustainable Procurement Conference

World Sustainable Contracting Day – May 17, 2022
A World Commerce & Contracting event
Sustainable Contracting: Why You Should Care? While goals and principles provide the framework for sustainability, they will be achieved through contracts!

Federal Working Groups Feds Can Join for Help

Interagency Committee on Alternative Fuels and Low Emission Vehicles (INTERFUEL) – focuses on federal fleet management issues and implementation
- Contact: Jay Wrobel and Cabell Hodge
The Sustainable Acquisition and Materials Management (SAMM) Working Group – focuses on federal sustainable procurement activities
- Contact: Adina Torberntnsson
Interagency Sustainability Working Group (ISWG) – focuses on the sustainable federal buildings
- Contact: Ken Sandler
Federal Electronics Stewardship Working Group (FESWG) – focuses on furthering progress on federal electronics stewardship sustainability goals.
- Contact: Holly Elwood and Cate Berard

The information on CDP, SBTI and EPA's work on GHG will be an extremely helpful starting point (and more) for a contracting community that knows little about decarbonizing the supply chains that they buy from.
For the Climate Related Financial Risk EO 14030, awareness of the TCFD report may be helpful to a few who are buying financial services on behalf of FEMA and Treasury, though they are likely already aware. Buying such services is a specialized and potent pivot point for diversifying the risk of contingent liability for adaptation resources.

Recent Series That Started the Community of Practice Efforts

Leading organizations already have moved out on climate change and sustainable procurement efforts, and other G7 countries are ahead of the U.S. in policy and practice. The Administration has issued Executive Orders and taken actions intended to make the U.S. a leader.

To achieve the goals, our profession must learn a new vocabulary, experiment with different approaches, and evolve policies, practices, and priorities in the epic struggle for our planet's future.

What do Executive Orders and policies mean to the profession and what we do as contract management and acquisition professionals?

This series begins that journey with dialog in a neutral forum to explore what is already in place for Government buyers and sellers, agree on what is required to achieve the administration’s goals, and do what our community does best: engage in deliberative dialog on how we take up the charge.

Audience: Entire contract management community
Level: Intermediate/advanced, although beginners are also recommended to engage
Credits: 1 CPE/ 1 CLP/ .1 CEU each
Contract Management Body of Knowledge® Competencies: 3.4, "Regulatory Compliance"; 3.5, "Situational Awareness"

Current State

Held September 15, 2021

Prior to President Biden's new climate change and sustainability Executive Orders there were policies and programs in place embracing sustainability principles such as fuel economy, green buildings, and pollution reduction. In the first webinar of the series, we cover what is already in place and available to government procurement and review the state of private sector efforts. The discussion will expand on the tyranny of low price over life cycle, or total ownership, cost as sustainment and disposal costs rise.

Future State

Held October 28, 2021

Executive Orders on climate change and sustainability join a host of previous ones and more action is expected from the Administration. In the second presentation in this webinar series, we discuss sustainable procurement concepts to help comply and expand on the impact climate change will have on acquisition and contract management professionals for procurement and sustainment. The conversation draws on the first webinar in the series to examine private sector advances in sustainability as models for the U.S. Government.

Optimal State

Held November 18, 2021

Highlighted Speaker

Andrew Mayock
Federal Chief Sustainability Officer, Council on Environmental Quality

Highlighted Speaker

Richard Kidd
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy & Environment Resilience, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense

NCMA's neutral forum and dynamic community can drive and support the evolution of policies, practices, and priorities. In this conversation we will share and collaboratively refine a vision of the optimal state of climate change and sustainability from the acquisition and contract management perspective.