Oppts Contract Support Group, Environmental Protection Agency, Fairchild Building -- 7th Floor, 499 S. Capitol Street, S.W., Washington, DC 20024

A -- ENVIRONMENTAL COSTING HANDBOOK SOL MRB111 DUE 092497 POC Melissa Revely-Brown WEB: NOT AVAILABLE, NOT AVAILABLE. E-MAIL: NOT AVAILABLE, revely-brown.melissa@epamail.epa.gov. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing a request for proposal for services to which the Government intends to award a firm fixed price contract using the Simplified Acquisition Procedures of FAR Part 13. The EPA is FACNET certified. Any contractor/vendor able to meet requirement must demonstrate in writing by closing date. This notice is intended for competitive purposes. You may E-mail the contracting officer at revely-brown.melissa@epamail.epa.gov. Please include the following: Company Name; Address; Phone Number; Business Class; and Email Address. NO PHONE CALLS ACCEPTED. All questions must be addressed in writing and will be answered in writing. Award will be made to the firm whose offer provides the greatest value to the Government, price, quality and delivery performance considered. Award may be based on lowest overall evaluated cost and/or cost related factors. Two copies of all proposals, for the following statement of work, should be delivered to the following address, (fax/e-mail copies will not be accepted): US EPA; 401 M Street, SW; Mail Code 3803R; Washington, DC 20460 Attn: Melissa Revely-Brown -- HANDCARRY TO: 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW; Bid and Proposal Room -- 6th floor; Washington, DC 20003; Attn: Melissa Revely-Brown -- Due Date: 9/24/97, 1997; -- 2:30pm EST (Any proposal received after the due date will not be considered or opened.) Statement of Work Project Title: Environmental Costing Handbook 1. Introduction The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Accounting Project seeks to develop a practical handbook to guide medium-to-large sized manufacturing organizations in the analysis of the sources and magnitude of their environmental costs. II. Background It is the mission of EPA's Environmental Accounting Project to encourage and motivate businesses to understand the full spectrum of environmental costs and integrate those costs into decision-making. The Project has published a primer that clarifies environmental accounting concepts and terminology, and that provides introductory guidance on the identification of environmental costs and the application of environmental accounting to capital budgeting and process and product design. It has also supported the development of total cost assessment software, environmental cost accounting training, case studies and benchmarking studies of corporate environmental accounting practices, and has otherwise facilitated the advancement of environmental accounting concepts and tools. III. Objectives EPA and other members of the private, academic, and government sectors have conducted extensive research and developed many tools and case studies that address environmental accounting for capital budgeting. However, little practical guidance has been developed to assist organizations in improving the tracing or improved allocation of environmental costs to the appropriate products and processes. The objective of this task is to develop a practical handbook that will address that gap. Sub-objectives: A. The handbook will, at a minimum: Briefly provide guidance to organizations on determining why and to what extent such tracing or improved allocation should be conducted. Briefly provide guidance to organizations on how to use the more accurate accounting information to affect behavior and decision-making. Discuss the opportunities and limitations of using Activity-Based Costing (ABC) and Activity-Based Management (ABM) in improving the environmental, health and safety (EHS) and financial performance of the organization. Discuss how ABC and ABM techniques can assist an organization in measuring environmental performance and demonstrating the "value-added" of EHS management activities. Discuss the opportunities and limitations for using ABC/ABM techniques to support forward-thinking environmental life cycle cost estimations. Provide guidance on how an organization's EHS management might customize an organization-wide ABC system to better support EHS's efforts to achieve the organization's environmental management objectives and goals. Provide guidance on how EHS managers can apply ABC/ABM techniques and principles independent of an organization-wide system without investing in the creation of a new full-blown accounting "system". Provide practical guidance on the identification of EHS-related activities and cost drivers. Identify which functional areas of organizations would most likely be involved in the collection of environmental ABC information. Discuss the coordination among functions that would become necessary. Include testimony from a minimum of three organizations who have previously applied or are currently applying ABC/ABM techniques in an EHS context. This testimony will address these types of questions: How is ABC/ABM being applied? What benefits were achieved? What barriers were confronted? What "green" activities and cost drivers were identified? Provide a limited discussion of the relationship between enterprise-wide information systems (e.g., SAP) and environmental accounting. B. The information contained in the handbook and the format of the handbook will draw from: Information and frameworks presented in existing EPA environmental accounting products, including An Introduction to Environmental Accounting as a Business Management Tool: Key Concepts and Terms (EPA 742-R-95-001), Case Studies in Environmental Accounting: Green Accounting at AT&T (EPA 742-R-95-003), and the Pollution Prevention Benefits Manual (EPA 230-R-89-100). Discussions with three to five organizations that have applied ABM techniques in an EHS context. These organizations will also provide initial input on the format and content of the handbook. C. The vendor will also be asked to widely market the handbook. IV. Deliverables: The vendor shall electronically submit to EPA multiple (a minimum of five) drafts of the handbook as needed. EPA shall review the drafts and shall conduct an external review process for two of those drafts. EPA shall submit the comments to the vendor, who shall revise the drafts accordingly. After receiving comments to the final draft, the vendor shall make the required changes and submit to EPA a final document in hard copy and electronically in WordPerfect (6.1 or lower), HTML (including inter- and intradocument links), and PDF formats. The contractor shall submit deliverables within 1 to 4 weeks of receipt of the direction of the EPA WAM; the due date will be dependent upon the complexity of the project and will be specified by the WAM. V. Bidders' proposals should include: A discussion of how the bidder envisions the final product and the process for developing the handbook. Identification of no less than three and no more than five organizations that have used activity-based costing to support environmental, health, and safety management and from whom the bidder could expect participation in the development of the handbook. This participation would consist of contributing lessons learned, implementation examples, discussions of benefits gained, activities and cost drivers identified, and other information to the handbook. These organizations preferably will represent a variety of manufacturing sectors. A plan for marketing the final document. (The Environmental Accounting Project distributes documents through EPA's Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse, through its website, and at a variety of conferences and seminars. The Project seeks to know how the bidder would leverage its own activities and distribution channels to market the handbook developed in this task.) Any additional ideas that the vendor would like to propose as an expansion to, or a variance on, the main proposal. Such ideas are welcome and encouraged. Vendors who choose to submit such ideas should separate the ideas from the main proposal and provide incremental cost proposals for each of the new ideas. VI. Timeline: Work will begin upon approval by the EPA contracts office, and will end by August 31, 1998. VII. Proposal Evaluation Vendor selection will be based on a combination of factors. Those factors are: Merits of the proposal Demonstrated expertise in corporate environmental, health, and safety management Demonstrated understanding of the costs and benefits related to environmental, health, and safety activities in manufacturing organizations Demonstrated understanding of the objectives, activities and products of EPA's Environmental Accounting Project Demonstrated experience in developing and implementing activity-based costing systems Demonstrated understanding of enterprise-wide systems (e.g., SAP) and their connection to activity-based costing Proposed cost of the work Demonstrated credibility in the business community Demonstrated ability to write in a manner clear to a broad business audience (0247)

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