Energy-efficient government purchasing
Posted by Allan on May 11th, 2005Governments are often the largest, or among the largest, purchasers of goods and services within their own countries. In the United States, government spending is close to 15% of GDP. In many other countries of the world, both industrialized and developing, that figure ranges from 5 to 30 %. A great way to increase energy efficiency, and reduce public expenditures on energy costs is through energy-efficient government purchasing guidelines. When governments recommend purchasing from the most energy-efficient segment of product markets, they help move the market as a whole toward more energy-efficient goods.
Berkeley Lab EETD researchers have provided quite a bit of technical advice to federal, state and local governments on developing energy-efficient procurement practices. Here are some documents and websites to help you get started, thanks to Jeff Harris in our Washington D.C. Projects Office:
We’ve worked with FEMP for many years on energy-efficient government purchasing at the federal level; see the program website at
http://www.eere.energy.gov/femp/technologies/eeproducts.cfm
and the related Energy Star site at http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=bulk_purchasing.bus_purchasing
A number of states and cities are now using the same criteria for energy-efficient purchasing as the federal agencies; a summary of some of these programs is in the recent paper:
Harris, J. et al. ” Energy-Efficient Purchasing by State and Local Government: Triggering a Landslide down the Slippery Slope to Market Transformation”
Download it here:
Energy-efficient government purchasing is now moving to other nations as well, including China, India, Mexico, and European nations. See the PEPS website—Promoting and Energy-efficient Public Sector.