Greening Your Government Program
The impact of 'green government'
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Today, governments at all levels — Federal, state, county and municipal — are seeking to incorporate environmental considerations into their activities. They want a healthier environment for their citizens and employees, and they know they need to lower costs at every stage along the supply chain. With a combined purchasing power of over half a trillion dollars annually at all levels, governments have the largest potential to help society achieve sustainable consumption. To address this opportunity most effectively, Green Seal launched the Greening Your Government Program.
Mandates to go green
There are a host of Federal laws and regulations requiring that the environment be considered when making purchases with Federal funds. Green Seal's consensus standards are required by law to be used by Federal agencies instead of government-developed standards. In addition, Federal policies encourage the use of other Green Seal standards. Many State and local governments are beginning to put in place environmentally preferable purchasing programs as well, some with statutory or executive mandates.
Read about some of the benefits of green purchasing decisions.
What we do
Green Seal provides assistance in purchasing, operations, and facilities management through product evaluations and recommendations, guidance manuals, certification, and special projects. Specific areas of expertise include:
- Purchasing
- Institute or improve green purchasing
- Lists of recommended products
- Standards, criteria, and contract language
- Environmental or financial justification for environmental purchases
- Operations
- Evaluation of building maintenance, office practices, parks and recreation, vehicle maintenance, lodging
- Recommendations for environmental improvement
- Environmental product criteria
- Manuals for specific operations
- Facilities
- Evaluation and design
- Recommendations for environmental upgrading
- Equipment criteria and recommendations
- Identification of potential savings through environmental improvement
How we do it
Unlike other commercial and non-profit organizations, Green Seal focuses exclusively on environmentally preferable products, purchasing, and operations. Our unparalleled expertise in these areas comes from 15 years of experience. Green Seal is the only U.S. organization that offers an existing body of life-cycle environmental standards and that recommends specific brands and models of environmentally responsible products from a life-cycle point of view.
Green Seal meets the EPA's Criteria for Third Party Certifiers, the requirements of ISO 14020 and 14024, and the standards of the Global Ecolabeling Network. Green Seal is the U.S. member of this international harmonizing body of 26 of the world's leading ecolabeling programs including Germany's Blue Angel and the Nordic Swan.
Finally, Green Seal is an independent, science-based, nonprofit organization, assuring the authority and objectivity of its recommendations.
What we've accomplished so far . . .
Since the mid-1990s Green Seal has played a very active role domestically in ensuring that the Federal government's green procurement program provides the guidance necessary for officials to identify and select environmentally preferable products. In particular, Green Seal provided input into the process to establish the legitimacy of third-party certification for procurement. The result was memorialized in guidance of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on environmentally preferable procurement.
Examples of our work:
- Development of major environmental standards for degreasers, institutional cleaners, and adhesives for the U.S. Army, Aberdeen Proving Ground;
- A year-long project to institutionalize green procurement for the State of California;
- A manual on green building operation and maintenance for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; and
- Projects to certify hotels in key travel areas of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.
Take a look at some of our successful projects.
Among our clients are the following agencies and municipalities:
- U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Ground
- National Park Service
- U.S. Department of Energy
- U.S. Department of the Interior
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- U.S. Postal Service, Southeast Area
- Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
- Commonwealth of Virginia
- State of California
- State of Georgia
- City of Santa Monica
- City of Philadelphia
- The World Bank
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