Posted on March 4, 2010 by Chris Cheatham

GSA's Green Building Role in the Federal Government

While preparing for my presentation "Legal Considerations When Building Green" for the National Research Council, I contemplated what proposals I wanted to make to the federal agency representatives that would be in attendance. 

The federal government is pushing federal investment in green buildings through $25 billion allocated from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and through the Executive Order 13514, which includes numerous building efficiency requirements. As federal agencies attempt to implement green building programs, it is important to facilitate and share green building knowledge across the numerous federal agencies.

In my view, the General Services Administration (GSA) is in the best position to facilitate a cohesive federal strategy for green building. The GSA has been developing and constructing LEED certified buildings since 2002. Last year, the New York Times profiled a GSA building in Ohio that failed to achieve energy savings despite receiving LEED certification in 2002. The GSA has experience, both good and bad, with green buildings that can significantly benefit other federal agencies that are just now starting out with green buildings.

As I contemplated making what I thought was a drastic proposal, the GSA released the following information:

"GSA has made significant changes that will strengthen its role in helping the Obama Administration make the federal government a leader in sustainability.

First, the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings has been moved from PBS [Public Buildings Service] to the Office of Governmentwide Policy. . . .

As part of governmentwide policy, the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings will expand its reach to provide federal agencies with measurement tools and policies to meet its sustainability mandates."
To me, this seems like a move in the right direction.  But what do you think?  Is the GSA the best agency to coordinate federal green building policy?
 
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Comments (1) Read through and enter the discussion with the form at the end
Edgar Farrera - March 4, 2010 3:08 PM

Chris,
I think one issue regarding the Federal Government (as well as other clients) that needs to be addressed is the problems related to the determination, by some agencies, to seek so-called "LEED-equivalent" or "LEED certifiable" buildings while specifically noting that they do not intend to seek actual certification. It seems to me that this approach poses many risks for the design professionals involved. Hoe can a project be considered "LEED equivalent" if it is not actually run through the LEED certification process? If a project is not commissioned, there is no energy simulation model, and none of the calculations related to credit templates have been run then it seems to me that no determination can be made as to whether it is "LEED equivalent" or not. This sounds like someone wanting a football team to be "championship equivalent" without any intention of playing a game on the field. I suggest that a better approach would be to either seek LEED certification or else to seek a high-performance green building but not call it "LEED certifiable" or "LEED equivalent". Perhaps adopting elements of the LEED checklist as a prescriptive approach would work in the cases where certification will not be sought, or the design team themselves could recommend an appropriate metric in those cases

Just my 2 cents.
ERF.

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