Strategies to Ensure Successful Delivery of Sustainable Products and Services
Overview
This page is intended for the acquisition workforce (particularly procurement officials, requirement officials/specifiers, and other staff who affect acquisition decisions) to provide sample contract language and help verify contractor compliance with sustainability requirements specified in contracts. Both pre-award procurement actions for incorporating sustainability best practices into the contract and post-award procurement actions for verifying compliance with contract requirements are covered. When specifying products, start with the Green Procurement Compilation, which includes federal requirements for selecting products with environmental or energy attributes.
Specifying Sustainable Products and Services
Visit the Sample Contract Language for Environmental Programs page for generic solicitation/contract language that can be used to incorporate minimum sustainability requirements into contracts for products.
Consider prohibiting certain chemicals by specifying that products "contain no chemicals on the State of California Proposition 65 List". Other considerations:
Resources that may assist the acquisition workforce in incorporating sustainability best practices include:
Resources for Verifying Sustainable Products
Federal Requirements
The Green Procurement Compilation lists products for which Federal agencies require specifications, standards, or ecolabels, or have otherwise provided guidance for selecting products with environmental or energy attributes. The GPC includes EPA’s Recommendations of Specifications, Standards, and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing and those presently recommended by various DOE and GSA programs, which can be used to determine whether contractors are providing compliant products. It is up to the contractor and/or vendor to provide credible and verifiable documentation to demonstrate a product or service meets the sustainable requirements included in the contract. Visit the Materials and Resources page for terms that help define sustainable acquisition and to better understand designated product requirements.
An important resource for verifying environmental information about a product is an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). EPDs are Type III environmental declarations that communicate standardized environmental information about the life cycle impact of a product.
Other Vendor Compliance Determination Resources
In addition to the required specifications, standards, and ecolabels included in the GPC, the following programs, standards, and ecolabels can be used to determine vendor compliance with requirements for certain products.
Program/Resource (Multiple Attributes)
Private Sector Standard/Ecolabel (Multiple Attributes)
Private Sector Standard/Ecolabel (Single Attribute)
Federal Ecolabel (Single Attribute)
Additional Resources
- The Responsible Purchasing Network has published a set of Green Purchasing Best Practices Guides
for the National Association of State Procurement Officials.