President Joe Biden's efforts this week to decarbonize federal buildings are part of a grand tradition of administrations using their purchasing power for environmental ends. “The future of construction is clean,” White House Federal Chief Sustainability Officer Andrew Mayock said in a statement supporting energy and climate standards for existing federal buildings and proposed emissions-reduction rules for new or renovated buildings, as Corbin Hiar and Kelsey Brugger report for POLITICO's E&E News. Jimmy Carter is thought to have been the first president to try to green federal spending, with his directive to the General Services Administration to "revise its paper-product specifications to encourage the purchase of more recycled paper." That got government recycled-paper purchases to 12 percent by 1992. Bill Clinton tackled paper more effectively with an executive order in 1998 that set minimum environmental standards for “purchasing or causing the purchase of printing and writing paper.” The order “stabilized market standards” and reduced the cost for recycled paper, which convinced large corporations and private universities to make the switch, E – The Environmental Magazine reported at the time . By 1998, 98 percent of government-bought paper contained at least 30 percent recycled content. Subsequent administrations have used federal procurement powers to promote everything from energy-efficient appliances to environmentally friendly cleaning products . But (there's always a but): Steel and cement are different. Despite federal spending accounting for 29 percent of GDP, the government is a relatively minor consumer of certain industrial goods, such as the pliable sheet steel used to make auto bodies. That's where the private sector needs to come in. Another but: These types of policies are vulnerable to political winds. President Donald Trump revoked President Barack Obama's 2015 goal of deriving 25 percent of agencies’ energy from clean sources, as E&E's David Iaconangelo notes . Industry is sounding a relatively committed note, though, partly because some states like New York and California have been paving the way with green construction-procurement standards. “Decarbonisation for our industry isn’t some pipe dream — this is a reality,” said Rick Bohan, the head of sustainability at the Portland Cement Association, an industry group. “This is going to happen, regardless of the administration.”
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