About the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program
The Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) program harnesses the power of the over 650 billon dollar federal pocketbook to catalyze a more sustainable marketplace for all – reducing climate impacts, improving the health of frontline communities, preventing pollution, and increasing U.S. industry competitiveness. The program helps U.S. federal government purchasers utilize private sector standards and ecolabels to identify and procure environmentally preferable products and services, providing a convenient and streamlined way to make sense of the often complex sustainable products marketplace.
The program does this is by:
- Coordinating U.S. government technical input into the development of voluntary consensus product sustainability standards,
- Issuing Recommendations of Specifications, Standards, and Ecolabels for Federal Purchasing across several key purchase categories, and
- Helping federal agencies to procure products meeting the recommended specifications, standards, and ecolabels.
The EPP Program’s work has generated significant cost and environmental benefits to the federal government. In 2018 alone, the federal government purchased nearly 7 million EPEAT-registered products, resulting in a cost savings to the federal government of around $182.5 million.
Federal purchasers leading by example influence what is available for other purchasers to buy as well. According to the Global Electronics Council (GEC), over their lifetime, compared to products that do not meet EPEAT criteria, the 1.33 billion EPEAT-registered IT products purchased worldwide from 2006- 2018 will result in:
- Reduction of 184 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses, equivalent to taking over 39 million average US passenger cars off the road for a year.
- Reduction of over 830,000 metric tons of hazardous waste, equivalent to the weight of over 8,000 Boeing 757s.
- Reduction of over 208 million metric tons of primary materials, equivalent to the weight of over 2 million blue whales.