Green Acquisition Gap Analysis of the United States Air Force Operational Contracting Organizations

Abstract

In this thesis we explore the goals and requirements of green procurement in order to assess the Air Forces degree of success with incorporating the Department of Defense's (DoD's) Green Procurement Program (GPP) into its procurement process. This thesis provides an outline of the federal policies and guidance regarding green procurement, including Executive Order 13514 (2009) and relevant parts of the Federal Acquisition Regulations. We examine the Air Force's progress towards a more environmentally friendly process, measured by the metrics set forth in the DoD GPP. To evaluate these metrics, we conducted an analysis to determine if the Air Force is implementing environmental considerations to the maximum extent practical. This analysis relied on the use of the Green Acquisition Gap Analysis (GAGA) model, which is a unique framework that we developed. The GAGA model fuses the personnel, platform, and protocol pillars of the Mandatory Pillars for Integrative Success (Yoder, 2010) framework with the Contract Management Process framework, which dissects the six segments of the contracting process: procurement planning, solicitation planning, the solicitation, source selection, contract administration, and contract closeout or termination (Rendon, 2007). Further, in order to document best practices for Air Force-wide dissemination, we identified the leading Air Force installations through our extensive research and collaboration with key leadership.