Buying into green

Buying Into GreenJulia Love

Is green procurement—the purchase of products and services that have alesser effect on the environment—just another in a long series of federal man-dates, seemingly aimed at making your job more difficult? Or is it perhaps thesolution to a variety of woes plaguing federal facilities? An aggressively man-aged green procurement program can reduce waste and pollutants, improvewater quality, save resources, and increase worker productivity and health. Inshort, green procurement should be the heart of sustainability, affecting all as-pects of the program, and reaching far beyond the facility boundaries. © 2005Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

GREEN PROCUREMENT AT FORT BRAGGImagine if you will, four people, all of whom work at a military in-

stallation: the first three, soldiers—a first sergeant, a supply sergeant,and a private first-class—and the last, a civilian solid waste technician.

The first sergeant tells the company’s supply sergeant to purchasesome paint to touch up the barracks for next week’s command inspec-tion. The supply sergeant goes to the local hardware store and pur-chases two cans of paint—whatever is on sale and is close to the rightcolor. The job of actually painting is passed to the private. When thetask is complete, the soldier tosses the almost-empty paint cans intothe nearest Dumpster, the contents of which end up at the installationsolid waste transfer station operated by the waste technician.

End of story? No—not by a long shot.The waste technician, upon finding the not-so-empty paint cans,

must now stop all operations at the waste transfer station and removethe cans as suspect hazardous waste in accordance with state and fed-eral regulations. The actual cost of this simple painting job has gonebeyond the cost of the paint; it has escalated to include the cost of haz-ardous waste response and disposal, lost man-hours by transfer sta-tion personnel, and a claim against the government for lost time by theinstallation’s waste hauling contract for time that the transfer stationwas closed.

None of these costs were visible to the paint requester, paint pur-chaser, or even the painter. Even if they were aware, what alternativeswere available to them? What could have made the right thing to dothe easiest thing to do?

Fort Bragg, North Carolina, has provided the happy ending to thisscenario. In September 2004, Fort Bragg opened an innovative consol-idated Paint Center conveniently located next door to the Self-Service

Federal Facilities Environmental Journal/ Autumn 2005 39© 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/ffej.20061

Julia Love, an environmental procurement specialist with SAIC, manages the green procure-ment program for Fort Bragg in the Directorate of Public Works.

40 Federal Facilities Environmental Journal/ Autumn 2005

Buying Into Green

Supply Center (SSSC), which offers paint-related supplies such asbrushes, pans, and the like. The Paint Center tracks each paint can bybar code, so that in the event a partially used can does show up in aDumpster or the landfill, the waste technician can trace it back to itsowner for proper management and recycling. A customer can walkinto the Paint Center with measurements of the area requiring paintand leave with the proper amount of paint for the job that is water-based (lower air contaminants), in the approved installation color, andat a cost of 5 percent below market price. If the customer has leftoverpaint, the Paint Center will take it back and offer it for reissue to thenext customer, all at no cost to the customer’s organization and no dis-posal fees.

This is just an example of how one process on the installation wastracked, charted, and then revised to provide the path of least resistancefor doing the right thing, therefore conserving both fiscal and environ-mental resources. Exhibit 1 lists other “greened” processes at Fort Bragg.

EXISTING PRACTICESExisting procurement practices at Fort Bragg were much like other

military installations—very much linear in execution. The typical pro-curement method is a textbook example of the “cradle-to-grave”process. Supplies and systems are requisitioned, ordered, received,consumed, and disposed of with little or no consideration of the truelife-cycle costs or impacts that could lead to unintended consequences.

Why is this important? In a word, mission. Fort Bragg is an Armypower projection platform. The focus of daily activities is the intensivepreparation of a contingency force ready to deploy anywhere in theworld. The phrase 18 hours to wheels up is literal at Fort Bragg; it im-plies the elevated state of readiness that must be maintained at the in-stallation. Realistic training is essential for mission accomplishment.Every dollar misspent is a dollar that cannot be used for training andoutfitting soldiers. Any square foot that is diverted for more landfillspace is land removed from valuable training ranges, compromisingFort Bragg’s mission.

Paul Hawken, in his book, Factor 4, portrays the wasteful scenario ofconsumerism in America, where manufacturing produces nearly 16

Exhibit 1. “Greened” Processes on Fort Bragg

• The Paint Center offering water-based, low-VOC paint• The Green Zone at the SSSC• Updated contract specifications for recycled-content carpet and used/refurbished furniture• Recycled-content specifications for the Installation Design Guide• Sustainable designed buildings• Regional sustainability initiative to mirror Sustainable Fort Bragg

Federal Facilities Environmental Journal/ Autumn 2005 41

Julia Love

times more waste than useable product (see Exhibit 2). What wasneeded was a circular method where waste was minimized andreused—a “cradle-to-cradle” approach portrayed in William McDo-nough’s book Cradle to Cradle. For procurement, it means buying greenproducts from the start—products made from recycled content,biobased products, and used and refurbished products—and invest inproducts that are recyclable, renewable, or reusable at the end of theirfunctional life. Buying cheaper, disposable products may appear to bepennywise initially, but until the entire life cycle of a product is exposed,it may prove to be pound-foolish and a waste of our valuable resources.

BRIDGING THE GAPThe question was how to bridge the gap between existing methods

of operation and the desired end state. The answer was to initially in-corporate sustainability theories into the major garrison activities, thefirst Army installation to attempt such a feat.

Fort Bragg began the transition from compliance to sustainability in2000 when planning began for an initiative called Sustainable FortBragg, based on The Natural Step method (http://naturalstep.org/learn/methodology.php). Sustainability offered the blueprint to inte-grate installation mission, community well-being, and environmentalconsiderations into the decision-making and daily operationprocesses. As a result of goal-setting sessions in 2001, 11 long-term sus-tainability goals were developed by 200 installation and communitystakeholders and set standards for cleaner air and water, solid wastemanagement, erosion control, land use management, and environ-mentally preferred procurement (Exhibit 3). From these goals, nineteams were formed that would be responsible for implementing goal-specific objectives. The Materials Team, led by the Director of Con-tracting (ACA) and the chief of Supply and Service Division of the Di-rectorate of Logistics (DOL), was accountable for environmentallypreferred purchasing (Goal 10). Facing the team members was adaunting list of objectives they were responsible for (Exhibit 4).

Among the goals, the solid waste goal (reduce landfill waste to-ward 0 by 2025) was determined to be the most urgent. As the instal-

Exhibit 2. The Wastefulness of Consumerism


Buying Into Green

lation grows to support an increasing mission, solid waste has in-creased proportionately, placing an even heavier demand on the in-stallation landfill. Modularity alone is expected to increase FortBragg’s population by nearly 4,000 soldiers, not including familymembers or civilian support personnel. When the Fort Bragg landfillreaches full capacity in just a few years, scarce financial and natural re-sources will be spent sending solid waste off the installation at a muchhigher cost to the Army.

The Materials Team’s responsibility is to identify and implementmeasures to reduce waste, improve environmental quality, prevent the

Exhibit 3. Fort Bragg’s 25-Year Sustainability Goals

1. Reduce amount of water taken from the Little River by 70% by 2025. 2. All water discharged from Fort Bragg will meet or exceed North

Carolina State High Quality Water (HQW) Standard by 2025.3. Landfill waste to be aggressively reduced toward zero by 2025.4. Meet minimum platinum standard for all construction by 2020

and renovate 2% of all existing structures to at least a bronze stan-dard by 2020 (using SPiRiT standards).

5. Plan for the balanced growth of the Sandhills region and the mis-sions of Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base.

6. Establish energy independence by 2030 through renewable re-sources, energy efficiency, and community partnerships.

7. Develop and implement an effective regional commuting pro-gram by 2015.

8. Reduce the use of both gasoline and diesel in the nontactical fleetby 70% by 2015 and 99% by 2025.

9. Develop an integrated environmental education program for FortBragg, its surrounding communities, and interested parties.

10. Work toward 100% environmentally preferred purchases by 2025for all purchases, including government Purchase Cards, con-tracts, and military requisitions.

11. Maintain and enhance sustainable training lands that ensuremission readiness.

Exhibit 4. Goal 10: Environmentally Preferred Purchasing Objectives

Objective 1: Perform opportunity assessments to identify EPP candidates. Objective 2: Develop policies, training, and awareness.Objective 3: Encourage the local market to produce, stock, and pro-

mote EPPs.Objective 4: Develop tools to measure and increase program success.


Julia Love

loss of critical training lands to landfill space, and partner with thecommunity to improve recycling programs.

As with all goal teams, one of the first tasks facing the MaterialsTeam was a process mapping exercise to ascertain what Fort Braggwas buying and how it was buying it. The decision was made to studysimplified acquisition purchases (SAPs), purchases that are over thecredit card limit of $2,500 but under $100,000. The top ten productlines purchased in 2002–2004 were analyzed and a significant aspectsmatrix developed. The results were clear: renovation/constructionitems such as furniture and carpet topped the list and, therefore, wereprime candidates for greening (Exhibit 5).

In an interesting turn of events, when the solid waste team per-formed their significant aspects of items most likely to be seen in thelandfill, construction/demolition items such as furniture and carpetcame out on top of their list, validating the Materials Team’s projectmapping results. These findings cemented the Materials Team’s re-solve to re-evaluate the type of carpet and furniture purchased foruse on the installation. Why not purchase carpet and furniture madefrom recycled content, and that, in turn, could later be recycled (Ex-hibit 6)? The key to mandate the purchase of environmentally pre-ferred carpet and furniture for all new construction and renovation

Exhibit 5. Furniture and Office Equipment

Furniture and office equipment that could have been reused takes up valuablelandfill space.


Buying Into Green

pointed directly to the Installation Design Guide (IDG), a documentunder the control of the installation master planner and the installa-tion architect.

CONTRACT SPECS FOR CARPETIn a joint effort to rewrite contract specifications outlined in the

IDG, the installation architect and the environmental procurementspecialist held a forum with four leading carpet manufacturers to de-termine just how green the carpet industry could go. Instead of FortBragg imposing specifications upon manufacturers that the industrymay not currently be able to support, the decision was made to chal-lenge the manufacturers to come up with the most environmentallypreferable carpet possible, within General Services Administration(GSA) guidelines. In other words, let the experts, not the customer, de-sign carpet. The manufacturer’s representatives left the table with ashort list of Fort Bragg’s carpet needs:

• Carpet tile whenever possible.• Use recycled content.• Take back the existing carpet and recycle it.

Exhibit 6. Carpet Made from Recycled Content

Carpet squares made of recycled content are now the preferred carpet product onFort Bragg.


Julia Love

At the follow-up meeting, the manufacturers individually pre-sented their proposals for sustainable carpet specifications. These pro-posals were reviewed, and a new installation carpet specification wasdrafted. Among the factors included in the specification, which ad-dresses 6’ and 12’ broadloom as well as carpet tile, are:

1. Construction and content percentages;2. Installation requirements; 3. Product recyclability; and 4. Indoor air quality.

Revised every few years, the newest edition of the IDG, which willinclude the new carpet specifications, is currently under development,with release set for early October.

In support of this effort, the Government Purchasing Card (GPC)team from Contracting has sent out a reminder to all their card-holders that any renovation that includes carpet—regardless of dol-lar amount—requires a work order, thereby insuring compliancewith the carpet specifications in the IDG. This illustrates the in-volvement required of all the stakeholders when “closing the loop.”

The procedural method developed for acquiring new specificationsfor carpet has proven so successful that it has become the model for fu-ture sustainable procurement specifications.

REFURBISHED FURNITUREWhile we had established the model for the procurement of envi-

ronmentally preferable products, furniture was approached in a dif-ferent manner (Exhibit 7). Research indicated that a glut of high-quality, used office furniture existed on the open market, often inexcellent condition and at half the price of new furnishings. Why notconsider used/refurbished furniture? This would take a leap of faiththat few military units or support agencies would be willing to test,so the Environmental Management Branch and Environmental Com-pliance Branch volunteered to be the test bed for refurbished furni-ture. After much debate and compromise between branch personneland the Directorate of Contracting, a statement of work with detailedspecifications was drafted for each office component, and bids forthe contract received. A source selection board was held and a ven-dor was chosen. While the contract has not been awarded due tobudget constraints, the hard work has been done and we anxiouslyawait the results.

Certain product lines are more amenable to reuse than others—carpet was questionable, but furniture held great promise. Explor-ing the sustainable approach to purchasing refurbished furniture,the question was asked: Could we refurbish our own furnituremuch like the Army had done in the past? While the Army is nolonger in the business of furniture refurbishment, could regionalbusinesses respond to a need?

Certain product lines aremore amenable to reusethan others—carpet was questionable, butfurniture held great promise.


Buying Into Green

In support of regional economic development, a partnership con-sisting of the regional sustainability initiative, Sustainable Sandhills,the Industrial Extension Service (IES) of North Carolina State Uni-versity, and Sustainable Fort Bragg, applied for an EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) grant to fund a study to determine the fea-sibility for the IES to create a regional furniture-remanufacturingcenter. The center would create an outlet for Fort Bragg’s discardedyet useable furniture, reducing the installation’s waste stream whilecreating jobs in North Carolina’s depressed furniture industry. Ap-plicability of this process for other institutional agencies like hospi-tals and colleges is very promising. Announcement of grant recipi-ents is expected this fall.

SSSC GREEN ZONEThe Paint Center was just the beginning of partnering with the

SSSC. An unexpected ally, Lions Club Incorporated (LCI), whichoperates the Fort Bragg store, took Fort Bragg’s environmentallypreferred purchasing (EPP) program to heart and made a concertedeffort to locate and stock EPP options for their Fort Bragg cus-tomers. This led to the creation of the “Green Zone,” a section de-

Exhibit 7. Refurbished Furniture

Refurbished furniture offers many options at a savings—financially andenvironmentally.


Julia Love

voted to recycled-content products, complete with a green strobelight (Exhibit 8). LCI consistently supports Fort Bragg’s desire formore environmentally preferable products and has worked withthe environmental procurement specialist to see that EPP optionsare prominently displayed and clearly marked as a preferred prod-uct. Specifically designed signage provides illustrations of the var-ious types of recycled content and biobased symbols to build sol-dier awareness. At the biannual GPC Trade Show, “green” productsfrom SSSC shelves and audience-specific briefs are presented tovendors to build awareness of what Fort Bragg’s EPP program islooking for, and to attendees to build awareness of what theyshould be purchasing.

TAKING IT BEYOND OFFICE WALLSEPP is just as applicable for construction projects. For example, the

world-renowned Golden Knights Professional Parachute Team, basedat Fort Bragg, recently moved into their new home, the first “gold-rated” building on Fort Bragg (Exhibit 9). Built using SustainableProject Rating Tool (SPiRiT) standards, the team is so pleased with thebuilding and bragged so much about the amenities the building of-

Exhibit 8. The Fort Bragg SSSC “Green Zone”

The “Green Zone” offers an array of environmentally preferred products.


Buying Into Green

fered that the division has requested all future buildings be con-structed to at least a gold rating. With a $1.2 billion military construc-tion (MILCON) budget through 2009, Fort Bragg will provide a sig-nificant opportunity for implementation of sustainable design andconstruction.

This is a win-win situation for the entire region. Placing an em-phasis on sustainable design and construction, regional architec-tural/engineering firms, and construction companies, most with lit-tle or no experience in sustainable design and construction, willgain invaluable experience that will likely generate technologytransfer outside the installation boundaries. Not only will FortBragg reap the benefits of these “green” buildings, but local compa-nies will have the opportunity to apply the knowledge gained to fu-ture projects in the region.

IN THE WEEDSEPP found a champion at Ryder Golf Course, operated by the Di-

rectorate of Morale, Welfare, and Recreation. Using the hierarchy ofpreferred purchasing (reduce, reuse, recycle), golf course personnel re-duced the amount of hazardous materials such as herbicides, fungi-

Exhibit 9. Golden Knights’ Home at Fort Bragg

The Golden Knights’ home is Fort Bragg’s first “gold” SPiRiT building.


Julia Love

cides, fertilizers, and insecticides commonly used on golf courses.These efforts were instrumental in Ryder Golf Course becoming thefirst Army golf course designated as a Certified Audubon Sanctuarycourse (Exhibit 10).

REGIONAL SUSTAINABILITYAs the demand for environmentally preferred products increases,

so does the demand for recyclable material. Alone, Fort Bragg cannotdrive the preferred products market. It would take a regional effort todrive a sustainable market, including preferred purchasing.

Inspired by the success of Sustainable Fort Bragg, North Carolina’sDepartment of the Environment and Natural Resources (NC DENR)partnered with Fort Bragg to address regional issues of sustainabil-ity and expand the effort to involve six counties surrounding FortBragg, commonly referred to as the Sandhills region. Aptly namedSustainable Sandhills, the fledgling initiative consisted of a coalitionof municipal and county leaders, concerned citizens, and represen-tatives from the surrounding counties and Fort Bragg. EmployingThe Natural Step method, members hammered out a separate set ofregional long-term sustainability goals and teams created to map

Exhibit 10. Audubon-Certified Ryder Golf Course

Bluebirds have found new homes on the Audubon-certified golf course.


Buying Into Green

out strategies. As with the Sustainable Fort Bragg initiative, greenprocurement falls under the Sustainable Sandhills’ “Material Use andWaste Team.” In an area where curbside recycling is nonexistent,one of the team’s objectives is to update the current recycling pro-grams in each county. To this effort, the team was instrumental ingetting one county to successfully apply for a grant to purchase aplastic baler that will allow for more efficient and economically re-warding recycling of a material in demand. In the spring of 2005,Sustainable Sandhills gained nonprofit status and received a grantfrom the EPA that will support the initiative for the next three years.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? The success of the program has been undeniable. The Garrison

Commander has since infused sustainability into the installationstrategic plan, and all garrison directorates have begun to search forthe sustainable aspects to solutions.

But how do you know when your program is successful? When the 82nd Airborne Division asks for “green” specifications

for new building projects; when dining facility managers ask for com-postable dinnerware; when soldiers demand plastic bottle recyclingcontainers by soft drink vending machines; or when our customer, thesoldier, asks for the sustainable option, the “green” solution.

They’re asking at Fort Bragg!When will the environmental community feel the EPP program is

successful? When we no longer have the need for a solid waste contract because

our waste stream has been eliminated through green procurement.

WHAT WE NEED FROM THE ARMYRegulations, policies, and guidance, specifically in green pro-

curement, are needed to support and direct environmentally pre-ferred purchasing. The Department of Defense’s Green ProcurementStrategy, released in August 2004, is an excellent strategy, but weneed to go a step further and find a better way to capture and ana-lyze green procurement data. Affirmative procurement has beenconstrained by loopholes, providing agencies with the means toavoid purchasing recycled-content products, specifically if the itemswere more expensive than nonrecycled-content products. Federalmandates requiring the purchase of recycled-content products wereput in place to create a market for those goods, as have the recentmandates for biobased products. Without a life-cycle cost analysis,very few of those products will look cheaper at first glance. Yetwhen we look beyond today’s price to tomorrow’s cost, how can weafford not to buy green goods?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of KrisTina

Wilson and Lynda Pfau in the preparation of this article.�

Buying into green

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