OSD’s Climate and Sustainability Objectives
The Unit develops and implements procurement strategies that reduce the environmental and health impacts of public purchasing while advancing the Commonwealth’s transition to a low-carbon, resilient supply chain.
The Unit collaborates with procurement teams to integrate climate, environmental and health considerations into Statewide Contracts. It also works with buyers, vendors, and other stakeholders to raise awareness, foster commitment to, and encourage active engagement in sustainable purchasing, responsible business practices, and supply chain sustainability.
The Unit tracks progress through a data-driven approach, continuously monitoring key metrics to achieve measurable results informing future policy decisions.
Environmentally Preferable Procurement (EPP) Program
The Unit manages the Commonwealth’s Environmentally Preferable Products Procurement Program (EPP Program) in accordance with Executive Order 515: Establishing and Environmental Purchasing Policy for the Commonwealth. Since the inception of the Program in 1994, thousands of green products have been incorporated into Statewide Contracts, and contract spend on environmentally preferable products and services has grown substantially.
Visit the EPP Website to explore environmentally preferable products and services available through Statewide Contracts in the EPP Products and Services Guide, learn about the EPP Program Legal Framework, access EPP Annual Reports, and find additional resources and information about the Program.
Key Initiatives
The Unit is integrating more comprehensive and robust sustainability requirements into public procurement in support of the Commonwealth’s climate and environmental goals (see EPP Program Legal Framework for more information). This includes strengthening climate and environmental-related provisions in our Statewide Contracts and encouraging vendors to adopt more rigorous sustainability practices. In parallel, OSD is aggregating and analyzing vendors’ climate and environmental data to determine trends, track progress, and identify opportunities for improvement.
Some of the Unit’s initiatives include:
Vendor Sustainability
The Climate and Environmental Practices (CEP) Form is designed to assess how vendors are reducing their climate and environmental footprints, and it is a required component of every Statewide Contract bid.
The CEP Form allows OSD to evaluate vendors across four sustainability indicators: policies, practices, monitoring, and certifications, which are essential data for bid evaluations, allowing vendors to earn points for strong sustainability practices while helping OSD identify overall trends and gaps in vendor sustainability.
Access the CEP Form, Guidance on Completing the CEP Form, and the CEP Form Video Tutorial.
Municipal Initiatives
The Unit is working to help direct the purchasing power of municipalities to advance measurable environmental and climate resilience goals by embedding sustainability criteria into procurement policies, vendor selection processes,
and contract requirements across municipalities and municipal departments. Through engagement with municipalities, the Unit aims to build a network of partner municipalities committed to shared climate standards, enabling the collaborative development of model procurement language, joint purchasing agreements for clean energy and low-emission equipment, and the exchange of best practices that reduce costs while accelerating decarbonization.
Procurement Emissions
The Unit has undertaken an upstream supply chain emissions baseline and hotspot map for products and services purchased through Statewide Contracts in Fiscal Year 2025.
The objective of the baseline assessment is to enable OSD to develop a strategic approach for integrating climate-related language into Statewide Contracts and to support tracking progress toward emissions reductions. The results of the assessment show that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are concentrated among the IT, Energy, Vehicle, and Waste sectors.
State Fleet Electrification
OSD is advancing fleet electrification across the Commonwealth to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support Massachusetts’ climate goals. Through collaboration between the Climate and Sustainability Unit (CSU) and the Office of Vehicle Management (OVM), agencies are making progress toward a cleaner, more efficient state fleet.
To support Executive Order 594, which requires that at least 20% of the state fleet be electric by the end of FY2030, the Unit worked with OVM to complete a statewide fleet electrification assessment to identify vehicle replacement opportunities, charging infrastructure needs, and strategies to increase EV adoption. Executive Branch agencies under the purview of OVM used this analysis in developing agency-specific Electric Vehicle (EV) Transition Plans by January 31, 2025.