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Merchandising: Products/Packaging
Sustainability Resources
EPA has extensive programs and information to help you supply products that are more energy efficient, made with fewer toxic components, optimize material use and are, where possible, recyclable.
EPA helps retailers discern which product standards and labels they should seek when procuring goods and services to sell to their commercial and individual customers. Currently, EPA develops its own standards and labels for certain products, such as the Energy Star, WaterSense, Design for Environment labels. In other cases, EPA participates in the development of consensus-based standards, that are accredited by the American National Standards Institute.
- Greening Suppliers
- Packaging of products
- Resources to help you purchase more environmentally friendly products
- Selling/Buying Green Products
- Transporting your products
Greening Suppliers
Retailers are beginning to look to their supply chains to make environmental improvements, as whole product lifecycle considerations are generating more attention.
- Green Suppliers Network: A collaborative venture among industry, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NIST MEP), a leading provider of technical assistance to manufacturers. Green Suppliers Network works with large manufacturers to engage their small and medium-sized suppliers in low-cost technical reviews that focus on process improvement and waste minimization. EPA provides program support and funding.
- The Toxic Releases Query Form allows you to retrieve data from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database in Envirofacts. Your query returns facility information and chemical reports, which tabulate air emissions, surface water discharges, releases to land, underground injections, and transfers to off-site locations. Use this information to identify green suppliers.
- EPA Partnership Programs: Businesses have a wide variety of opportunities to practice environmental stewardship. Review the partner companies under the various US partnership programs to find suppliers committed to environmental stewardship.
Packaging of products:
Retailers have the ability to reduce the environmental impacts of their packaging by:
- Evaluating the need for the package
- Using less material (aka. source reduction). Designing a package so that a minimum amount of material fulfills the functional requirements offers cascading environmental benefits. By reducing the quantity of raw materials used in the packaging, you can minimize its environmental and economic footprint.
- Increasing the recycled content of the packaging materials.
- Eliminating toxic constituents. Ensure that all the additives, adhesives, coatings, and inks that get added to the package are safe for human health and the environment.
- Use packaging materials that can be recycled or composted once it has served its original purpose. Design your package so all components can be easily taken apart and recovered.
- Support materials recovery and recycling. Educate your consumers on what they can do with your package once they no longer need it.
Learn more about innovative approaches companies have taken to reduce the environmental impact of their packaging:
- Albertson’s switch to recyclable coated boxes (PDF) (2 pp, 626K, About PDF)
- Rocky Mountain Recycling: Works with companies to recycle plastic film and wrap that would otherwise be trashed.
The Sustainable Packaging Coalition 
, supported by EPA, also provides information and guidance on reducing environmental impacts of packaging.
Resources to help you purchase more environmentally friendly products
- Webinar: Green Consumers and Green Stores: A look at Green Consumer Behavior and How Stores Have Been Growing Greener
- Database of Environmental Information for Products and Services: A tool to make it easier to purchase products and services with reduced environmental impacts. Environmental information on over 600 products and services is included in this database.
- Information for vendors
- Buy Recycled products: Buying recycled means purchasing products made with recovered materials. A necessary precedent to buying recycled is that manufacturers purchase recovered materials and use them in lieu of virgin materials in the manufacture of new products. WasteWise partners commit to increasing overall recycled content in the products they purchase.
- Buy Safer Chemical Products: The Design for the Environment (DfE) program allows use of its logo on products that are made of safer chemicals. When you see the DfE logo on a product, it means that the DfE scientific review team has screened each ingredient for potential human health and environmental effects and that the product contains only those ingredients that pose the least concern among chemicals in their class.
- Green Electronics Made Easy: resources to help small business register products, promote EPEAT registered products, or use EPEAT to make environmentally preferable purchasing decisions.
- Business Calculators: quantify the environmental benefits of selling products and providing services (such as product take-back):
- Recycled Content (ReCon) Tool: estimate life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy impacts from purchasing and/or manufacturing materials with varying degrees of post-consumer recycled content.
- Electronics Environmental Benefits Calculator : calculate the environmental benefits achieved by purchasing EPEAT registered electronic products.
- Energy Star Savings calculators
- Durable Goods Calculator (DGC): gain a better understanding of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission implications of various disposal methods for durable goods.
- Smartway calculator: compare the costs and estimate the fuel savings associated with various efficiency technologies.
- Household Products Database: Health and safety information on household products.
Selling/Buying Green Products
- Appliances: The Energy Star program helps businesses save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices. (battery chargers, cloths washers, dehumidifiers, dishwashers, refrigerators & freezers, room AC, and room air cleaners)
- Building Supplies
- Carpets: Find environmental attributes to look for and procurement guidelines.
- Water Efficient Products (e.g., shower head, toilet): Look for the WaterSense label to choose quality, water-efficient products.
- Cleaning Products: Safer surfactants are surfactants that break down quickly to non-polluting compounds and help protect aquatic life in both fresh and salt water. These safer alternatives are comparable in cost and are readily available. Visit CleanGredients™ to find safer surfactants
- Electronics: The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) helps you evaluate, compare and select desktop computers, notebooks and monitors based on eight environmental performance categories. All EPEAT registered products meet Energy Star's specifications. Products eligible for ENERGY STAR use less energy, save money, and help protect the environment.
- Computer desktops, laptops, and monitors
- Imaging Equipment (fax machines, copiers, printers, multi-function devices, etc)
- Televisions
- Servers
- Energy Star specifications under development
- EPEAT standard under development
- Cell Phone / PDAs
- Other Electronic Products
- Furniture: The decisions the industry must make now on flame retardant alternatives offer a real opportunity to protect public health and the environment. Through the Furniture Flame Retardancy Partnership, EPA and its partners are working to identify and move toward environmentally safer approaches to meeting fire safety standards.
- Heating and Cooling
- Landscaping Products
- Lighting and Fixtures
- Office Supplies
- Paper and Paper Products
- Showerheads
- Toilets
- Urinals
Transporting your products
- Smartway Transport: an innovative collaboration between EPA and the freight sector designed to improve energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions, and improve energy security
