by Brianna Crandall — November 5, 2013—Building industry professionals associated with federal facilities should take note that the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) made its recommendation on October 25 that the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and the Green Building Initiatives Green Globes 2010 are the third-party green building rating systems that the federal government can use to gauge performance in its construction and renovation projects.
GSA is required by law to issue a recommendation to the Department of Energy (DOE) on how the federal government can best use third-party green building certification systems to measure the design and performance of the federal governments construction and major renovation projects.
“GSA has opened this review to an extensive public process, and we’ve made this recommendation using input from the public, industry stakeholders, and sustainability experts,” said Kevin Kampschroer, Director of GSA’s Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings. “We’ve found two tools that allow us to measure how federal buildings of all kinds can best save energy, improve overall performance, and cut down utility costs.”
GSA notes that other certification systems were not selected because they did not align with the governments requirements. Additionally, under today’s recommendation, GSA will conduct more regular reviews in order to keep up with the latest green building tools that the market has to offer.
Third-party certification systems like LEED and Green Globes help in measuring reduction targets for water, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions against industry standards. Agencies can use one of the two certification systems that best meet their building portfolios, which range from office buildings, to laboratories, to hospitals, to airplane hangars.
Federal construction and modernization projects must adhere to the government’s own green building requirements by law and executive orders, notes GSA, and no one certification system meets all of the federal governments green building requirements. Green building certification systems are just one tool that GSA uses to cut costs and meet sustainability and economic performance goals across the federal government’s portfolio.
