Federal, state, and local governments could save at least $139 million annually by reducing energy\ waste through the purchase and use of energy-efficient products. Reducing this waste would reduce\ annual greenhouse gas emissions by 4.1 million metric tons of carbon (MMTCs) by the year 2010;\ the equivalent of planting an area of trees the size of Yellowstone National Park. In addition, with\ $50-70 billion in purchasing power for energy-related products, specifying energy efficiency could\ significantly shift the market for these products.
The Federal government recently launched the ENERGY STAR{\textregistered} Purchasing Initiative to channel the\ purchasing power of state and local governments -and its environmental impact- in the direction of\ energy-efficient products to capture significant environmental benefits and increase the demand in\ the marketplace. Part of this effort studied why governments don{\textquoteright}t currently procure the most\ efficient products, and attempted to identify the changes that would be necessary to allow many\ governments to do so. Some of the initial barriers to energy-efficient procurement that were found\ are:
{\textbullet} Lack of information about the availability of energy-efficient products;
{\textbullet} Split incentives, where the agency purchasing the products do not pay for the utility bills\ directly and, therefore, have little interest, or incentive, to save energy;
{\textbullet} Misinformation about the benefits of energy efficiency;
{\textbullet} Energy efficiency not seen as a value-added aspect of procurement;
{\textbullet} Budget constraints; and
{\textbullet} Lowest first-cost bias.
This paper will present the results of this study and describe the mechanisms that will be put into\ place to address each of these barriers.
}, year = {1998}, booktitle = {ACEEE}, journal = {ACEEE}, series = {ACEEE}, volume = {Volume 7}, }