Awards/Success Stories/Technology Transfer

Awards

The U.S. Department of Energy gives an annual Green Purchasing award as part of its "P2 Stars" award program. The Secretarial Offices also bestow a Green Purchasing award within their respective organizations. In addition to these awards, the DOE Environmental Executive forwards the DOE winning nominations to the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive for consideration to receive the White House Closing the Circle award.

The DOE Green Purchasing award criteria are the same as the Closing the Circle award criteria. To be considered for the Green Purchasing Award, the organization must have

• Robust program for purchasing recycled products as well as either biobased products or other environmentally preferable products, especially best examples of acquiring, using, or validating products or services that have a reduced impact on human health and the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose
• Outstanding improvement to a process that resulted in significant monetary savings and benefit to the environment or
• Product testing that led to the approval and use of environmentally preferable products or services.

Preference is given for outreach programs/projects or educational efforts designed to promote the green purchasing objectives of Executive Order 13423. Energy efficiency projects and products should be submitted as FEMP awards.

To nominate your site for a Green Purchasing award:

• The nomination forms are on the Internet.
• Nominations are annually accepted between October 1 - mid December.
• Nominations are for five categories: Green Purchasing, Waste/Pollution Prevention, Recycling, Environmental Management Systems, and Sustainable Design/Green Buildings. The Buy Bio Award is in the category of Green Purchasing.
• The DOE award criteria are the same as those for the White House Closing the Circle Award.

The Nomination Process

• You draft a nomination. The limit is 2000 words, which is approximately 4 pages in Times Roman 12 font.
• Your Preferable Purchasing (P2) Coordinator reviews the nomination, does a quality check on input, and attains your management endorsement of the nomination.
• Your P2 Coordinator inputs nomination to Web site, identifying your PSO (Program Secretarial Officer for EERE, Office of Science, Environmental Management, etc.)/Administrator responsible for the site being nominated.
• The PSO/Administrators will select their respective "best-in-class" nominations for awards.
• The DOE-HQ P2 Coordinator denotes on the Web site which nominations were selected for awards by their PSO/Administrator.
• The PSOs will notify the DOE Environmental Executive of their selection and those nominations will be forwarded to the Office of the Environmental Executive for consideration for the White House Closing the Circle Award.

Success Stories/Technology Transfer

This area is for DOE sites to post information on their Environmentally Preferable Purchasing success stories so the information can be quickly transferred (including the intricate details that always need to be worked out) to the other DOE sites. The postings will be by product category and can also be in the form of a query from a site seeking information on any particular environmental product. The biobased product success stories are posted on the "Biobased Product Success Stories" webpage.