Majority of agencies meeting sustainable acquisition goals, OFPP says

Budget

Majority of agencies meeting sustainable acquisition goals, OFPP says

A new report to Congress shows 17 of the 24 largest agencies bought sustainable products at least 95 percent of the time.

Jason Miller@jmillerWFED

April 21, 2015 2:21 pm

3 min read

Three years after President Barack Obama called on agencies to buy more sustainable products, a majority of the agencies are meeting the governmentwide goal.

A new report from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy shows 17 of the 24 largest agencies bought sustainable products at least 95 percent of the time.

“[P]eriodic reviews of contract actions conducted by agencies to assess compliance with sustainable acquisition requirements indicate that there has been a significant improvement in compliance during the reporting period,” wrote OFPP Administrator Anne Rung in the report to Congress. “For example, in fiscal year 2011, seven agencies, representing 28 percent of the 25 agencies, reported that they met the established 95 percent sustainable acquisition goal based on their quarterly reviews of at least 5 percent of new contract actions. By FY 2013, 17 agencies, representing 68 percent of the 25 agencies reported that they met the 95 percent sustainable acquisition goal based on their quarterly reviews.”

This is OFPP’s first report to Congress since 2009, and covers agency purchases between 2010 and 2013.

OFPP required agencies to submit data to the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS) on green purchasing activities on the heels of the President’s October 2009 Executive Order (EO) 13514: Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance.

The President recently signed the next iteration EO March 25, Executive Order 13693 — Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade, outlining new goals and requirements for agencies, such as using remote building energy performance assessment auditing technology and installing and monitoring advanced energy meters in all data centers by fiscal year 2018.

After three years of data, OFPP told lawmakers that seven agencies achieved 100 percent of the sustainability goal, which means that every product or service they bought in 2013 was energy efficient or water efficient or biobased or fit into one of the other four categories.

“To monitor performance, agencies generally perform quarterly reviews of at least 5 percent of applicable new contract actions to determine if sustainable acquisition requirements are included,” Rung wrote in the report. “Particularly noteworthy are efforts by the departments of Defense, Interior and State, which increased compliance by 52 percent, 35 percent and 61 percent, respectively. OMB believes progress by these agencies may be attributed to increased attention, tracking, and oversight through the scorecard process.”

The EO required agencies to break out the buying of biobased products and services even further. OFPP reported that it emphasized this requirement specifically in 2013 and found 14 of the 25 agencies reported that they met their voluntary target for including biobased requirements in applicable contracts. OFPP says agencies are expected to meet the 95 percent goal for biobased in 2015 and beyond.

Overall, OFPP reports agencies are including the requirements for sustainable products and services more total contract actions — 80,415 in 2013 up from 44,854 in 2010 — but total dollars remain fairly consistent with $22.7 billion in 2013 up from $22.4 billion in 2010.

OFPP has spent much of the past few years trying to get agencies to track and buy green products.

In November 2013, the General Services Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency issued draft guidelines to apply commercial to green purchasing.

The White House also committed in 2011 to spending $2 billion on solar and other renewable energies to help power federal buildings.

GSA over the last few week has announced a series of green government efforts, including increasing the energy efficiency of the federal fleet and an update on initiatives in its “Green Proving Ground” program.

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