Contracting for Efficiency: A Best Practices Guide for Energy-Efficient Product Procurement

The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) supports federal agencies in meeting federal energy and water management goals. FEMP’s Energy-Efficient Product Procurement program provides guidance to agencies with regard to federal sustainable acquisition requirements related to energy and water consumption. This guidance, in turn, depends on several programs that identify the energy or water performance of various commercially-available products. These programs include:
• ENERGY STAR, which labels products that meet particular energy efficiency requirements in a large number of product categories;
• FEMP designation, which sets efficiency requirements for product categories not covered by ENERGY STAR;
• EPEAT, which covers a number of energy and environmental characteristics for some electronics product categories;
• FEMP Low Standby, which provides guidance on purchasing products with low standby power consumption (a measure of power consumption when a device is in its lowest power-consuming mode—typically when the product is switched off or not performing its primary purpose); and
• WaterSense, which labels water-using products that meet particular water efficiency requirements.