Making It Happen: Incorporating Energy Efficiency Into Government Purchasing

Patricia Barnes and Edward J. Wisniewski, The Consortium for Energy Efficiency

Keywords

Abstract

This paper discusses the Consortium for Energy Efficiency’s (CEE’s) efforts to incorporate past research into government procurement and more recent findings from CEE’s Government Procurement project into a Market Transformation initiative to promote greater energy efficiency in state and local government purchasing.

The goals of changing procurement practices are to reduce energy use and save money that can then be used for other public investments and improve environmental quality. It has been estimated that state and local governments spend $50-70 billion per year on energy consuming products, about 16% of the total amount spent for energy products in the USA (Raynolds, 1997)

With a concerted effort to consider energy efficiency in their purchase decisions, this market could easily influence the design, manufacture and availability of energy efficient products and technologies. “Government purchasing” often connotes a static, conservative, bureaucratic system, but in fact, is undergoing an evolutionary process. The gradual trend towards decentralization of government purchasing, and technological advances in automated systems and e-commerce have broadened the perspective of program planners as they develop programs, tools and resources to assist the Market Transformation process towards energy efficiency in purchasing.

Government purchasing is influenced by numerous factors and players. To affect change in this area requires a multi-faceted approach of changing policies, educating influencers, and providing tools and resources to enable energy efficiency to be readily incorporated. This paper discusses CEE’s multi-targeted approach that includes development, testing and refinement of a template for program services that can be offered by a utility or other service provider to provide education, tools and resources to governments to change the way they procure energy consuming products and equipment. In addition, the paper describes CEE’s efforts to influence purchasing policy by working with, and leveraging efforts of government purchasing and legislative associations.