A friendly reminder that federal employees have until Saturday to submit their ideas for the White House GreenGov Challenge, a chance for rank and file folks to share their ideas on how to improve the government's environmental sustainability.

More than 10,000 civilian and military employees have logged on to WhiteHouse.gov/GreenGov to submit ideas and vote on other submissions, according to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Using Google Moderator technology, participants review the other ideas and vote on their preferred suggestions. The best ideas then to rise to the top of the list, and will be included in a final CEQ report on the government's environmental sustainability.

"There’s no winner or loser, we’re just trying to harness the collective wisdom of 1.8 million civilian and military personnel, and you have to come up for a different approach for that than just having it all go into an e-mail account," said White House New Media Director Macon Phillips.

The GreenGov Challenge "is a way for people across the country to participate in the business of government that I think historically has focused on Washington, D.C.," Phillips said. "If you look at the locations of people submitting ideas, they’re all over the place."

The Office of Management and Budget's SAVE Award used a similar format to solicit cost-savings ideas from the rank-and-file. The White House will include the best savings idea in President Obama's FY 2011 budget.

By Ed O'Keefe  |  October 29, 2009; 1:52 PM ET
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