GSA Blog

In the business of going green (Part 1)

Often when we hear ‘going green,’ big, new initiatives come to mind. The electrification of the fleet. Seeking to reduce the embodied carbon impact of building materials. Or using Artificial Intelligence to help address climate change. Each of these are innovative, bold steps to reduce the federal government’s environmental impact. But what if we told you we’ve been in that business all along?

Through measures — both big and small — GSA has taken steps to improve sustainability over decades, including:

• Reducing waste, and diverting material from landfills.
• Achieving significant and sustained reductions in energy and water usage.
• Installing on-site renewable energy systems, and buying off-site renewable electricity from growing clean energy producers across the Nation.
• Studying and adopting cutting-edge technologies.
• Increasing portfolio-wide efficiency and investment by leveraging public-private contracting vehicles such as Energy Savings Performance Contracts and Utility Energy Service Contracts.
• Finding new sustainability and climate opportunities that are possible within existing schedules and budgets, during the design of our construction and modernization projects.
• Using advanced analytics, remote diagnostics, real-time metering, and other Smart Building technologies.
• Meeting the high-performance Guiding Principles for Sustainable Federal Buildings on every new construction and major modernization project, for seven years running.

Next week, we’ll be sharing some construction and modernization project examples that highlight how GSA is improving our real estate portfolio’s sustainability footprint.