"A big piece of the White House’s plan to lower government carbon emissions is drawing on an unlikely source: the federal checkbook.

If the strategy works, it will be thanks in no small part to the General Services Administration’s massive buying power, Robin Carnahan, the agency’s administrator, told Bloomberg Law in an interview.

The GSA owns and leases more than 371 million square feet of building space and oversees some $75 billion in annual contracts, making it the nation’s biggest property owner and one of its largest purchasers.

“Government has used its portfolio, its buying power, to show what’s possible and help jump-start some of these market activities,” said Carnahan, a former Missouri secretary of state. “It’s not like the government got it started, in most cases, but we can do things to accelerate it.”"

Stephen Lee reports for Bloomberg Environment December 16, 2022. [2]