EPP or Environmentally Preferred Purchasing is a program started by the EPA to spur government purchases that helped green the federal government and its purchases. With its enormous buying power and the shear number of products and services needed by the federal government, this program now effects many vendors, contractors and even the everyday consumer.

This program helps purchasers find the green products and services that will help to create a more sustainable environment. While this isn't the only clearinghouse of such products, it is important to understand and oversee how our government is approaching green purchasing.

You can check it out for yourself at http://www.epa.gov/epp/

So how does a government oriented program help the everyday consumer. I would think that this is geared toward those larger purchases and bulk type deals rather than to the everyday consumer. Maybe I just don't understand what this program is all about. I don't see a great link between the everyday consumer's habits and those of the federal government.

gavin, I think you missed the point. This program started as a government oriented purchasing program that helped harness the purchasing power of the federal government to drive market trends which in the end shifts the markets for all consumers. Consumers in mass could do the same thing, but try to get a HUGE contingent of the buying public to purchase with the same behaviors and goods and see if you can succeed in regulating them.