Meeting — March 21, 2024

The GSA Acquisition Policy Federal Advisory Policy & Practice Subcommittee convened for a public meeting at 3:00 PM on March 21, 2024, virtually via Zoom, with David Wagger, Co-Chair, presiding. 
In accordance with FACA, as amended, 5 U.S.C. App 2, the meeting was open to the public from 3:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. EDT.

Meeting agenda

Committee members present:

Luke Bassis — Chair Port Authority of New York and New Jersey 
David Wagger— Co-Chair Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries 
Richard Beutel — George Mason University 
Leslie Cordes — Ceres 
Nicole Darnall — Arizona State University 
Mark Hayden — State of New Mexico 
Amlan Mukherjee — WAP Sustainability Consulting 
Jennie Romer — Environmental Protection Agency 
Nigel Stephens — Phoenix Strategies 
Anish Tilak — Rocky Mountain Institute 
Kimberly Wise White — American Chemistry Council 
Troy Cribb — Partnership for Public Service

Absent:

Antonio Doss, Steven Schooner, Stacy Smedley

Guest speakers and presenters:

Michael Bloom — Office of Federal High Screen Buildings 
Melissa Minor — Office of Industrial Climate 
Stephen Baker — Catalog Management Office

GSA staff present:

Boris Arratia — Designated Federal Officer 
Stephanie Hardison — Deputy Designated Federal Officer 
David Cochennic — GAP FAC Support 
Bianca McIntosh — GAP FAC Support 
Jenny Bohan — Closed Captioner 
Debra Lakebring — ASL Interpreters 
Heidi Cooke — ASL Interpreters

Call to order

Boris Arratia, Designated Federal Officer, opened the public meeting by welcoming the group before reminding the public that there will be time for comments and statements at the end of the meeting. He then performed a roll call to confirm attendance and a quorum. After the quorum was met, he turned the meeting over to Chair, Luke Bassis.

Introductory remarks

Luke Bassis mentioned that the Policy & Practice subcommittee has reached the third round of recommendations. The committee has been working together for quite some time to finalize recommendations before the final presentation meeting in May. The next public meeting will be focused on getting to a conclusion on what the final recommendations for the subcommittee will be. The goal is to start this meeting with a small reflection on the journey and how the subcommittee potentially moves forward with goals and expectations.

Subcommittee business

Luke Bassis mentioned that one of the common themes that has emerged in many of these recommendations is the use or supply of data. The goal is to have credible and verifiable data that can be used to evaluate products using a data infrastructure that is open and publicly available for industry and for buyers. Ultimately, such data can serve as the basis for development of a curriculum for sustainable procurement education.

There was a recommendation also to sponsor a maturity model for embedding sustainability and climate risk management in GSA. Another recommendation was related to developing and leading a cross-agency effort to establish a federal data standard and protocols for eco-label certification and utilization. Also, this would encourage GSA to develop and implement a plan for stronger federal data standards and protocols for eco-label certifications.

In reference to a vendor scorecard, the recommendation would be to do a deep dive into a vendor and a vendor’s performance history and to see their products and sustainability-related data for their products. There was also mention of data to make informed decisions and to include product evaluation.

David Wagger recommended visualizing data so that procurement officers can make good decisions that are resilient and can satisfy government needs to withstand any kind of scrutiny both from veracity and relevance of the data.

Amlan Mukherjee recommended that the entire supply chain of information be collected, archived, developed and then turned into tools that can be used by procurement specialists. The general idea is to really create a space where there can be multiple tools that meet the requirements for an API (application programming interface). Also, it is necessary to have a basic framework that ensures the usage of standardized data sets and methods likened to data infrastructure.

Luke Bassis agreed with Amlan’s recommendation to have a centralized, free federal resource for verifiable and credible data for every procurement category related to sustainability with industry established best practices. This could be used by any number of tools to assist in the decision-making on topics such as vendor selection, evaluation, or informing strategy.

Amlan Mukherjee mentioned that the EPA is working on their program for creating the standard rules of data which is out for public comment right now but also allowing for competitive tools and innovation.

Richard mentioned implementing credible data reporting since it does not require a lot of funds to provide reports. The data reporting should also be voluntary and provide specific value to past performance of a vendor in order to make it easier for the government to fill a requirement. There should be an added category for those past performance around data.

Anish Tilak provided a recommendation on improving tracking of sustainable procurement. The key is to streamline and make things easier to track when it comes to vendor sustainable procurement.

Nicole Darnall recommended assessing products by analyzing what the actual product being purchased is from a vendor and having an office dedicated to assessing data at the vendor and product level.

Nigel Stephens mentioned that there are discussions on the Hill about having a consolidated office to manage data and to leverage that needed support along with data being utilized by algorithms and AI.

Luke Bassis mentioned that the committee has explored the concept of a maturity model for the broader category of incorporating sustainability into federal acquisition. Jennie Romer recommended capturing data at the vendor and product level as very important. Also it is vital to look at larger vendors and what opportunities exist for using data.

Troy Cribb suggested that GSA would benefit from the subcommittee and the full committee laying out the full array of questions that are coming up related to data that need to be addressed. This can allow gaps to be identified properly.

Richard Buetuel recommended enhancing credit in the evaluation formulas for vendor and product data along with using green principles. He also recommended using Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) as a type of contract to purchase supplies or services in quantities that are not yet determined. In addition, he suggested that every prime contractor should be required to have a subcontracting plan for the supply chain. In regards to past performance, the committee can ask or require in terms of past performance of the vendor to include the extent to which or how well their product was considered “green”.

Luke Bassis suggested that he would like to put together a task group to try to come up with a hypothesis on what this IDIQ recommendation would look like by the next committee meeting in April. He also mentioned that when it comes to vendor selection, assessing the type of data along with evaluating it will help understand the type of vendor involved.

Guest speaker discussion

Stephen Baker discussed the desire to connect the SF tool product search to another product, which is like a PBS product with GSA Advantage for mass products. Two recommendations:

• Have a recommended link to mapping products that have eco-labels and in general green products.
• Implement a standard that can match green identified products with the actual product itself.

Michael Bloom shared that data sharing agreements are necessary between the government and the organizations and accrediting systems that hold the data. It is recommended to figure out how to both have data shared broadly and transparent enough to be able to be placed in the right category. It was also suggested that the government can own all of the eco-labor data that is needed to be useful in the ways fitting to this committee.

Melissa Minor recommended having the vendor tool and product search lead straight to the catalog of awarded prices with vendors that are offering the product. Michael Bloom recommended keeping the product level data search separated from the vendor data search.

Amlan Mukherjee recommended pushing towards more product category based products than specific. He would prefer to create a distinction between product categories and products.

Steven Baker recommended displaying an environmental panel or link to the SF tool product search to other eco-labels and display a page that has the eco-labels. This can allow the database to collect solid matches between products and display on web pages. The problem is the resources that would be dedicated to this are completely saturated right now. It is suggested to start aligning resources now to get this done when the opportunity becomes available.

Melissa Minor stated that GSA Advantage could benefit from having a product search that contains a lot of information that is product specific. Michael Bloom made an important recommendation for GAP FAC to own the conversation to push forward the aggregation of eco-labels and required federal programs.

Amlan Mukherjee suggested making recommendations separately for services and products since the product space has issues different from the service space.

Public engagement

David Wagger opened the discussion up to the public for comments, but there were none.

Closing remarks

Boris thanked all the guest speakers for their input and recommendations. Luke thanked the guest speakers for their perspective from a GSA standpoint.

Adjournment

Boris Arratia adjourned the meeting at 5:00 P.M. EDT. 

I hereby certify that, to the best of my knowledge, the foregoing minutes are accurate 
and complete.

Digitally signed by Luke Bassis 9/17/2024 
Luke Bassis 
Chairperson 
GAP FAC Policy & Practice Subcommittee

Digitally signed by Dr. David Wagger 9/17/2024 
Dr. David Wagger 
Co-Chairperson 
GAP FAC Policy & Practice Subcommittee