Sustainable Development

About Sustainable Development

Achieving sustainability requires more than conserving energy and water, reducing waste, and purchasing “green” products and technologies. It also requires a broad understanding of the principles of sustainable development. To help the Government in this effort, OGP's Office of Real Property Management has developed several educational resources on sustainable development to support federal agencies’ efforts to operate sustainability.

Sustainable Development Resources

GSA has developed several resources on sustainable development to aid federal agencies in this effort:

Videos and DVDs

Video of "The Road to Sustainability: A Conversation with Ray Anderson"
Features Ray C. Anderson of Interface Inc., and Joseph Moravec, the former Commissioner of the GSA Public Buildings Service.
- View the 19-minute video Journey to Sustainability or read the transcript.

Video of "Highlights of William McDonough Speech"
Features a keynote address at GSA's "Sustainability 2000 Workshop."
- View the 50-minute video

Sustainable Development Reports

- "The New Sustainable Frontier: Principles of Sustainable Development” (2009)
  This 40-page guide to sustainable development will help you move beyond existing "green" and "high-performance" strategies that provide incremental improvements, to ones that will sustain the Government’s operations within the scale of the Earth’s closed system. The "Guide" and its four-section "Appendix" include concepts, tools and strategies for operationalizing sustainability that will simplify every-day decision-making and provide guidance for achieving long-term goals.
- "Sustainable Development and Society" (2004)
  Promotes a fuller understanding of sustainable development by focusing on safe building products and services and how they affect real property owners and operators in everyday decisions.
- "Real Property Sustainable Development Guide" (2000)
  A 28-page introduction to sustainable development with ideas, case studies and resources on implementing sustainability and sustainable workplaces.
View PDF or Word document copies of the reports below.

Document Title	Format/Size
The New Sustainable Frontier: Principles of Sustainable Development (2009)-- GUIDE	[PDF -6534K] [Word -236K]
The New Sustainable Frontier: Principles of Sustainable Development (2009) - APPENDIX	[PDF -1911K] [Word-859K]
Section One: Operating Sustainably - Case Studies	[PDF-1222K] [Word -233K]
Section Two: Economic Decision-Making -An Outline of Ecological Economics	[PDF-4625K] [Word -233K]
Section Three: The State of the World	[PDF - 948K] [Word - 233K]
Section Four: The Government Mandate for Sustainability	[PDF -1426K] [Word - 233K]
Sustainable Development and Society (2004)	[PDF -2179K] [Word - 352K]
Real Property Sustainable Development Guide (2000)	[PDF -1029K] [Word - 216K]