Call is intended for standards developers, certifiers, and ecolabel - - PDF document

• Call is intended for standards developers, certifiers, and ecolabel program managers that

are considering volunteering to be assessed in the building paints/coatings, flooring, and furniture sectors/categories. 1

• The US federal government has a very long history in trying to reduce our environmental

footprint with our purchases.

• The use of public procurement as a tool for good is not new.
• The Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Program was born in the early ‘90s per

Presidential Executive Order.

• Considering what is “environmentally preferable” takes a holistic, comprehensive look at

human and environmental health impacts across the life cycle of products and services, local and global, and we now are in a time where that is broadly considered best practice.

• It has certainly been an iterative process.

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• There are many credible and effective standards and ecolabels in the marketplace, and

we want to be able to use them.

• Too often the problem is conveyed that there are too many ecolabels and standards and

it is only part of the issue. There is a need for many more standards and ecolabels to fill gaps in the marketplace.

• The EPP Program goal per the guidelines and this pilot is to find a way to transparently,

fairly, and consistently determine which of the marketplace standards and ecolabels are credible and effective. This requires an assessment per criteria aligned with US government standards policy and EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment. 3

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• The Executive Order 13693 was signed March 19, 2015 and directed EPA in section

3(i)(iii) to provide federal agencies with recommended specifications, standards and ecolabels. 5

• EPA’s interim recommendations of standards and ecolabels, as well as requirements per

CPG, EnergyStar, BioPreferred, WaterSense, SaferChoice, SNAP and SmartWay, can all be found on the Green Procurement Compilation.

• It’s the one stop shop for federal purchasers looking to understand what the particular

mandate(s) for a particular purchase category are. 6

• The guidelines were developed to be the mechanism to determine what is credible,

effective and appropriate for federal use.

• A number of stakeholders and experts were convened to translate the cross sector

guidelines into product category specific criteria.

• We have subcontracted with Industrial Economics as the independent assessment entity

that will apply the criteria ‐‐ developed through the panels and governance committee ‐‐ to determine conformity for the standards and ecolabels that volunteer to be assessed. 7

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• Initially, there was the intention to potentially bring in a fourth product category if time

and resources allowed.

• A service sector panel is exploring if and how to expand the guidelines, recognizing that

a number of service sectors standards and ecolabels are coming into the marketplace and that the federal government buys a lot of services. 9

In line with Executive Order 13693 Implementing Instructions, EPA developed the draft Guidelines to assess alignment with: ‐the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act, Office of Management and Budget Circular A119, and related federal policies that guide the EPA’s use of voluntary consensus standards and private sector conformity assessment activities (Section I, III, and IV); and ‐effectiveness in protecting human health and the environment per EPA’s mission (Section II). The Guidelines were developed over a 5 year period via an Interagency Working Group, which included USDA, DOE, GSA, DOD, DOC, USTR, and others, and reflect feedback from dozens of listening sessions and from approximately 80 organizations during a 6 month public comment period. The draft Guidelines in many cases were written as high‐level, cross‐sector principles (not easy to ascertain conformity around). So, as part of the pilot, Product Category Panels and a Governance Committee have developed draft assessment criteria and example sources of evidence, which represent the specific means by which an Independent Assessment Entity (IAE) will assess volunteer standards’ and ecolabels’ conformity. Through the pilot, we have already found that we could streamline the criteria in a few ways so, for example, there are many criteria that address multiple Guidelines simultaneously and there are options to bypass certain criteria if the standard is an American National Standard or if the CAB is accredited to relevant standards in the ISO 17000 series. 10

• Scoring will be absolute (there will be no “grading on a curve”).
• There won’t be any partial credit, but we recognize that some portion of the criteria

might not be applicable to a standard/ecolabel.

• The results of the pilot assessments would be ‘meets’ or ‘exceeds’ EPA’s 2016 criteria.
• The baseline criteria will be pre‐requisites for the ‘meets EPA’s criteria’ designation and

an organization’s standard or ecolabel program would need at least 6 leadership criteria

• verall including 3 leadership in section 2 to get the ‘exceeds’ designation.
• Sources of evidence that could be used to demonstrate conformance are only
• suggestions. It could be that one source of evidence is sufficient. That will be

determined by the independent assessment entity. 11

• How to improve the Guidelines?
• Which Guidelines require a product category specific approach?
• Did we get the baseline and leadership designations right?
• How should the sections of the guidelines be weighted?
• How to communicate results to federal purchasers?
• How do we present different tiers of performance?
• We don’t want to overcomplicate things for the federal purchaser.
• It’s already complicated thinking about how to present single attribute, single

life‐cycle stage standards and eco‐labels alongside multi‐attribute and multi‐life cycle based standards.

• What are post‐pilot scenarios?
• Business models?
• Which Purchase categories “go next”?

• Angela Helman from Industrial Economics (IEc) will be overseeing the assessment for the pilot.
• Plan to be open for assessment starting mid‐June.
• Instructions will be sent to SDOs or other entities when application period is about to open.
• Deadline will be 3 weeks from the date of opening the process. It will take approximately 4‐5 weeks for IEc to

complete the assessment.

• Confirmation will be sent from IEc when they receive an application.
• A completeness check will be performed, where they will decide if the application is complete or is in need of

additional clarifications.

• Two individuals at IEc will look at every application for quality control. The team will meet every few days during

the assessment period to discuss any issues and to make sure they are being consistent across all of the applications.

• They may schedule a call with an applicant to go over any areas that require clarification. The applicant will have
• ne week to provide additional information or documentation.
• By mid‐August, hope to have assessments complete, and will communicate the results to applicants, EPA, and

the pilot panel and governance committee.

• Results communicated will indicate if the applicant exceeds criteria, meets criteria, or does not meet criteria.
• Short reports summarizing results of the assessment across all the entities that volunteered will be provided. The

results of informational questions that EPA has posed will be synthesized and communicated to EPA and to the governance committee about particular criteria or issues that required a certain amount of clarification or follow‐ up steps.

• **Note: We are aiming to respect claims of confidential business, please be aware though, that the Agency has

FOIA obligations (Freedom of Information Act) and there is a possibility we will be FOIAed for the information. So, if there is information that you are submitting that you would like to claim as confidential business information you’ll need to do that at the time of submission. Most of the criteria we do not think will qualify as Confidential Business Information. We have authorized RESOLVE and Industrial Economics to manage this information in a manner that is consistent with 40 CFR Part II Subpart B.

• The goal will be to re‐convene our panel and our governance committee to provide overall feedback and

suggestions for refinement. RESOLVE ‐‐ our primary contractor‐‐ and Industrial Economics will produce a final report to be delivered to EPA.

• The report will characterize minority or dissention comments and would also characterize where the standards

and ecolabels that were assessed disagree with the results, where they suggest there be improvements in the criteria, etc. Goal: by the end of the year, EPA plans to synthesize the information, make any updates to our interim recommendations as appropriate, finalize the guidelines, and determine next steps on the business model, purchase categories to “go next,” etc.

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• Intend to disseminate the recommended standards and ecolabels, to integrate them in

GSA’s category management vehicles, contract writing systems, OMB scorecards, federal procurement data systems and trainings; to make the recommended standards and ecolabels “standard operating procedure” whereby federal purchasers would not have to figure out how to add them all into each procurement. 14

See next page for Questions and Answers…

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Pilot Assessment Questions & Answers: Q – Will those organizations that have volunteered standards and ecolabels to be assessed have the

• pportunity to review and comment on the results of the assessment? If the Independent Assessment

Entity (IAE) says “no we don’t think you’ve met a certain criterion,” is there an opportunity for some further discussion? A – Yes. Organizations will be provided a brief opportunity to review and comment on the IAE’s assessment of their standard/ecolabel. Any dissenting or clarifying comments on that assessment will be included in the IAE final report to EPA, and will be considered in EPA’s final determination. Q – If the goal is to identify improvements to the criteria, how can the results of the pilot assessment be used for procurement policy (if standards are tested against criteria that would then be outdated)? A – It is our expectation that the pilot criteria and assessments will be robust enough to inform EPA’s recommendations per the EO. However, EPA will consider if/how to adjust the IAE findings in‐line with adjustments to the criteria resulting from the pilot, based on feedback from the Pilot Governance Committee and Panels. Q – If a standard/ecolabel doesn’t volunteer to be assessed, are they then precluded from being considered for federal procurement? A – Standards or ecolabels that have not been assessed and/or do not meet EPA’s criteria will not be recommended by EPA for federal environmentally preferable purchasing under EO 13693 Section 3(i)(iii). Standards and ecolabels not recommended by EPA are not precluded from federal

• procurement. However, federal procurement officials are directed to give preference to those

products and services conforming to standards and ecolabels that are recommended by EPA, and agencies will begin to report their compliance to this and other sustainable acquisition provisions via the Office of Management and Budget Sustainability Scorecard in July 2016. See EO 13693 Implementing Instructions p56‐57 for more information, including agency flexibilities. Q – Are you anticipating that at some point the federal government would charge an assessment fee to ecolabel and standards organizations that want to be considered for Recommendation? A – EPA would not have the authority to directly collect fees for assessments. However, there are a variety of approaches and business models that are being considered. One of those models includes having outside organization(s), not under contract to EPA, conduct the conformity assessments using the EPA criteria to inform an EPA recommendation for environmentally preferable purchasing. Under that scenario, those organizations could potentially charge a fee for the assessments. The Governance Committee will be providing feedback on this and other potential models. Q – Will the Pilot Program be disseminated to the public in any way? A – The Recommendations and criteria are/will be available on EPA’s public website. 16