Greenhouse Gas a competitive advantage for Government Contracting

With all of the discussion in the news and all of the advertising we have seen over the last couple of years for "going green" it only makes sense that "going green" in federal contracting would follow.  The GSA formed a cross-agency group recently regarding Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.  They concluded that not only was it possible to track this but it could be controlled somewhat by coordination with government suppliers.  For instance, it was estimated that IT systems alone were responsible for over 1 1/2% of global carbon dioxide emissions.  The reasoning was the energy required to run servers, computers and other computing equipment contributes to carbon dioxide generation.  OK you say, so how does that impact government contracting?  Well, the working group doing this study suggested that it would be acceptable to pay a higher price provided the higher priced supplier had a better GHG record than the competing bids.  Likewise, a procuring office could select against a supplier that did not have a particularly good GHG record.  Since this is relatively new, look for new ways to track and evaluate GHG in the near future.  I suggest that you stay in tune with this as you can use it to your advantage in bidding a contract if you can prove your firm has a good GHG record.  So now "going green" becomes more than a PR or goodwill gesture, it now can help you secure government contracts.