Clauses · FAR · Environment and safety
FAR 52.223-23 Sustainable Products and Services
Does the regulation require it to flow down?
No
No subcontracts paragraph: the clause runs (a) Definitions, (b) Requirements, (c) Resource, End of clause. Primes flow it down because the obligation is conformance of delivered items — if the prime owes the government an EPA-designated recovered-material item or a BioPreferred-compliant product, the only way to deliver one is to buy one, and the requirement has to be stated in the purchase order to be enforceable against the supplier. In the corpus it appears only in the three General Dynamics Mission Systems templates dated 2026-07-20.
A clause can reach your subcontract without a mandate. Once it is in your document, it is a contract term all the same. The missing mandate is a fact about the regulation. It is not a ruling on your order.
Checked against acquisition.gov on 2026-08-05 · edition MAY 2024 (codified FAR, unchanged through FAC 2026-01, effective 2026-03-13). Civilian agencies also run a deviated version, 'MAY 2024 (DEVIATION XXX 2025)', under CAAC Letter 2025-02 (2025-02-15). Under the RFO the clause is retitled 'Sustainable Products' with an unfilled '(DEVIATION DATE)' designation (unconfirmed — no dated version has been issued). · base v0.9.3 Read the text ↗
What it makes you produce
One item for your checklist.
Nothing to send, ever
There is no paperwork here. It is a rule you follow while you perform the work.
Nothing to send — the clause requires the products and services the contract identifies as sustainable to actually meet the program named for them
FAR 52.223-23(b)
When it is used
FAR 23.109(a): in solicitations and contracts unless the requiring activity wrote a justification that procuring sustainable products and services is not practicable (23.104(a)), or an exception at 23.105 or an exemption at 23.106 applies — and the justification, exception, or exemption has to cover the entirety of the contract action. No dollar threshold and no COTS carve-out for this clause (the COTS carve-out at 23.109(b) belongs to 52.223-4 and 52.223-9). The exceptions that matter to a defense sub are at 23.105: work performed or supplies delivered outside the United States, weapon systems, energy-consuming products designed or procured for combat or combat-related missions, and biobased products used in military equipment, spacecraft systems, or launch support equipment. The clause only bites on what the statement of work actually names — 52.223-23(b)(1) says the applicable products and services 'will be set forth in the statement of work or elsewhere in the contract'.
Read closely
The clause runs (a) definitions, (b) requirements and (c) a resource link, and none of the three asks for a submission. (b)(1) says the applicable products and services are set forth in the statement of work or elsewhere in the contract, so an order that names none has nothing to conform to. (a) defines sustainable products and services in two groups, not one: four statutory purchasing programs at (a)(1) — EPA recovered-material content at 40 CFR part 247, ENERGY STAR or FEMP-designated products at 10 CFR part 436 subpart C, USDA BioPreferred content at 7 CFR part 3201, and EPA SNAP-listed alternatives at 40 CFR part 82 subpart G — and three required EPA purchasing programs at (a)(2): WaterSense labeled products and services, Safer Choice certified products, and products and services meeting the EPA Recommendations of Specifications, Standards and Ecolabels in effect as of October 2023. Conformance is judged as of the time of quote, which makes it a pricing question before it is a delivery one.
The 3 templates that name it, with the line
Source: acquisition.gov, FAR 52.223-23, 23.109(a), 23.105, 23.106; CAAC Letter 2025-02 (acquisition.gov/caac/2025-02, PDF dated 2025-02-15) and its attachment showing 52.212-5(b)(46) and 52.213-4(b)(1)(xvii); RFO model text 23.108(a) and 52.223-23 at acquisition.gov/far-overhaul; DoD Class Deviation 2026-O0018 (verified 2026-08-05)
This is research, not legal advice. It states what the regulation says about this clause and cites the paragraph behind it. It does not rule on your order, and it does not rule on whether a prime's markings are correct.