Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP)

Summary: Environmentally preferable purchasing places responsibility on both manufacturers and consumers to understand the environmental impact of a product and restrict purchases to those products that have a minimal negative impact on the environment.

Throughout most of human history, the environment was treated as powerful and its resources as inexhaustible. By contrast, at the onset of the 20th century, the environment was recognized as fragile and subject to human impact. Until then, human civilization embraced many innovative technologies and products, but rarely considered the source of the production of certain goods and the effects of production or the total life cycle of a product on the surrounding environment.

Environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP) refers to the procurement of a set of products that cause minimal harm to living beings and environment. The fundamental concept of EPP has emerged from growing environmental degradation in the wake of human development and the resultant release of pollution worldwide. EPP involves comparing products based on some notable characteristics. To apply EPP, one must consider the product from the following standpoints: how its raw materials were acquired, how it was produced or manufactured, how it is packaged, how it is distributed, what impact it has during operation, how it is maintained, whether and how the product or its materials will be reused, and how it ultimately will be disposed of at the end of its life. EPP combines consideration of the environment, price, and performance. These three pillars of EPP require that the product is both good for the environment and provides a high quality of performance.

EPP products are long-lasting, of high quality, low in toxicity, reusable, and easy to recycle. Key characteristics of EPP products, therefore, are the following:

• Energy efficiency

• Durability

• Recycled or recyclable content

• Low or zero emissions of air pollutants and other hazardous substances

• Water efficiency

• Easy, nonhazardous maintenance

• Low life-cycle cost

• Packaging and distribution efficiency

• End-of-life management that keeps materials out of landfills (through reuse, recycling, or return to the manufacturer)

Some examples of EPP products are the following:

• 100 percent postconsumer-recycled, processed-chlorine-free (PCF) paper

• Energy Star equipment and appliances

• liquid crystal display (LCD) computer monitors

• Remanufactured, low-emission paints

• Water-based adhesives and paints that are low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

• Zero-formaldehyde-emitting composite wood products

• Odorless and nontoxic water-based markers and correction fluids

• Low-mercury fluorescent lighting

• Solar calculators (requiring no batteries)

• Upholstery and electronic equipment free from polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)

• Cleaning products with the Green Seal approval

• Furniture listed on the state’s Open Office Panel Systems Furniture contract

• Services, such as “green lodging,” that meet or exceed a threshold of environmental performance

The key benefit of purchasing environmentally preferable products is protected and sustainable environmental quality. However, consumers can realize a number of other benefits from EPP: lower risk to human health, increased energy and water efficiency, reduced toxic chemicals, low amounts of waste, support for markets for green products and jobs, and economic gains due to increased product life and lower maintenance and disposal costs. EPP also provides numerous benefits, beyond environmental protection, for producers and sellers of products: technology that requires fewer raw materials, lower cost in water and energy used during manufacture, and less maintenance to produce high-quality goods. Recyclable products may benefit a producer by limiting extra investment for producing the same goods. Consumers’ satisfaction with the products can promote the business and extend it, as well as build the business’s positive reputation as an innovative, “green” business.

Any effort toward EPP depends on the responsibility of producers and sellers as well as purchasers. Product manufacturers play a significant role, because they must first comply with environmental regulations to ensure that their products adhere to standards of quality and do not contain undesirable substances that cause harm to the environment. Producers must also provide consumers with information to instruct them in the proper use of the product and protect them from any hazards it might pose if improperly operated, including warnings, cautions, and recycling instructions or methods of disposal.

Governments and public agencies play a vital role in regulating manufacturing to ensure that products meet environmentally preferable standards. Regular monitoring can reveal whether a company is in compliance with environmental laws and regulations: for example, whether the firm is keeping records on equipment maintenance, avoiding incinerated intermediate waste, properly disposing of effluents, and responding to customer complaints. Environmentally preferable purchasing is policy in numerous places in the United States and abroad. As certain nations and jurisdictions demand environmentally preferable products, others that have not set similar standards will risk becoming dumping grounds for products with less desirable environmental attributes. Californians, for example, benefit from policies that help keep products with harmful constituents out of homes and workplaces, and an increase in demand for environmentally preferable products helps encourage manufacturers to create more of them.

Environmentally preferable purchasing programs need widespread support to maintain continual enthusiasm and participation. The main reason to track a program’s environmental benefits is to be able to communicate them to colleagues, supervisors, and the community at large. Data provided by vendors, government agencies, and researchers can be used to promote EPP to others and for external publicity. Regular publicity on EPP can encourage continuous enthusiasm and mass participation. Research institutes, government, and vendors can develop innovative ideas to create suitably designed products and establish rules to be followed internally and externally in support of EPP. Awards for organizations or employees who are innovating environmentally preferable products may encourage other promotional campaigns.

Slogans and educational efforts can also draw support for EPP. For instance, a hospital can implement a program to use recycle paper, encouraging its adoption by advertising to employees and the public that it is saving a certain number of trees. A manufacturer can tout its paper products as prepared from 100 percent recycled paper. A laboratory can announce that replacement of a histology reagent has saved dollars that would have been spent disposing of hazardous waste. Making this type of information available to the public can also encourage consumers to choose the organization’s EPP products or services.

In North America, the Canadian-based EcoLogo is the largest and most respected environmental standard and certification mark. The EcoLogo assures customers from the corporate to the consumer level that a product or service meets stringent standards of environmental leadership. EcoLogo has certified thousands of products for EPP, covering a large variety of categories, helping consumers to find and trust the world’s most sustainable products. The EcoLogo certification is a Type I eco-label, as defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). As EcoLogo states on its Website, “This means that the program compares products/services with others in the same category, develops rigorous and scientifically relevant criteria that reflect the entire lifecycle of the product, and awards the EcoLogo to those that are verified by an independent third party as complying with the criteria.”

The U.S. Government practices EPP in federal agencies and encourages federal contractors to participate in the program. In 2022 alone, EPP saved the federal government roughly $5.3 billion dollars. It also resulted in significant reductions in energy usage and solid waste generation.

Bibliography

"About the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program." United States Environmental Protection Agency, www.epa.gov/greenerproducts/about-environmentally-preferable-purchasing-program. Accessed 31 July 2024.

Commission for Environmental Cooperation. Promoting Green Purchasing in North America: Cleaning Products, Office Supplies and Equipment, and Electricity. Montreal, QC: Commission for Environmental Cooperation, [2005?].

"Green Purchasing." U.S. General Services Administration, 21 June 2024, www.gsa.gov/about-us/gsa-regions/region-8-rocky-mountain/sustainability-and-environmental-management/green-purchasing. Accessed 31 July 2024.

“Green Purchasing: Substituting Environmentally Preferred Alternatives.” Healthcare Hazard Management Monitor: The Newsletter of the Center for Healthcare Environmental Management 17, no. 1 (September 2003).

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Environmentally Preferable Purchasing.” http://www.epa.gov/epp/. Accessed 31 July 2024.