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Environmentally Preferable Purchasing for Rhode Island |
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What is Environmentally Preferable Purchasing? According to the federal standard, established by Executive Order in 1996 by President Clinton, EPP is the practice of purchasing products and services that "have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose."
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) is an institutional foresight tool that gives procurement personnel the tools to take all costs into account when making a purchase. Relying on purchasing price alone neglects to consider the costs of maintenance, disposal, and the costs of the materials to the environment. Ideally, EPP takes all costs (life cycle costs) into account, but often attention is focused on efficiency, recycled content, lowered toxicity, and reusability. EPP is practiced by the federal governement and its contractors under EO 13101. States can use these same principles and standards to establish their own EPP programs, as separate initiatives or as part of existing "Buy Recycled" or "Pollution Prevention (P2)" schemes.
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