EPA issues Final Guidance on EPP

EPA has just released the Final Guidance on Environmentally Preferable Purchasing, a document that will greatly assist Executive agencies mandated to adopt environmentally preferable purchasing under Executive Order 13101 -- Greening the Government through Waste Prevention, Recycling, and Federal Acquisition.

The Final Guidance is centered around 5 guiding principles:

• Include environmental considerations as part of the normal purchasing process.
• Emphasize pollution prevention early in the purchasing process.
• Examine multiple environmental attributes throughout a product's life cycle.
• Compare environmental impacts when selecting products.
• Make purchasing decisions based on accurate and meaningful information about environmental performance of products and services.

The Final Guidance also provides suggested steps for Executive agency implementation, a list of available resources to facilitate EPP, and a set of appendices, including a glossary of terms and a list, with definitions, of environmental attributes.

The Final Guidance is primarily intended for Federal government use. However, state and local government purchasers, "green" vendors, and those in the environmental community may also find the concepts and information applicable in their environmentally preferable purchasing efforts.

The Final Guidance is published in the Federal Register today, August 20, 1999. You may check it out at http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPAFR-CONTENTS/1999/August/Day-20/contents.htm.

In the near future, a fact sheet and hardcopies of the Final Guidance will be available to order by contacting the Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse at (202) 260-1023.

More information on the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program and the Executive Order are available at http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp.