Last week, the Green Building Advisory Committee recommended to the U.S. General Services Administration that “GSA strongly encourage the use of the LEED standard across the government.”

For the good of the environmental industrial complex

This is huge, not only because the federal government operates a portfolio of almost one million facilities (429,000 buildings and 482,000 other structures), making it the largest owner of improved property in North America, but it is also the owner or more LEED® certified buildings than anyone else. The federal government is also the largest tenant in LEED certified buildings on the planet.

Possibly most significant, the federal government has become an important agent of disruptive innovation improving the knowledge base on high performance buildings and leading the way in installation of cutting edge energy efficiency and sustainability technologies, that then find their way to the private sector. The impact of GSA continuing to pursue LEED cannot be overstated; not just for the benefit of the U.S. Green Building Council, that has lost some of its green luster, but also for the good of the environmental industrial complex that supports LEED building.

By way of background

By way of background, Section 436 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires the Director of GSA’s Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings to evaluate green building certification systems every five years to identify a system and certification level that “will be most likely to encourage a comprehensive and environmentally sound approach to the certification of green federal buildings.” EISA requires the GSA Administrator to provide recommendations to the Secretary of Energy, who then consults with the Secretary of Defense and the GSA Administrator, to identify the system(s) appropriate for use in the federal sector to certify green buildings.

GSA first evaluated certification systems in 2006 focusing on new construction. Based on this 2006 review, GSA recommended the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standard to the Secretary of Energy for use in the federal sector. Presently, GSA uses LEED 2009 for new construction and major renovation projects with LEED Gold as the certification system and target level.

GSA completed its most recent evaluation of green building certification systems in May 2012 focusing on certification systems for new construction, major renovations, and existing buildings. In this review, three systems were evaluated in depth: Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes (2010), U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (2009), and the International Living Building Institute’s Living Building Challenge (2011). GSA evaluated the three green building certification systems against 27 new construction and 28 existing building statutory and Executive Order requirements. The study found that Green Globes aligns with more of the federal requirements for new construction than LEED or Living Building Challenge while LEED aligns with more of the federal requirements for existing buildings than Green Globes or Living Building Challenge.

Ultimately, the 2012 report found that none of the existing green building certification systems meet all of the federal government’s needs for high performance building metrics and conformity assessment, especially when considering the federal sector’s statutory requirements in this area. However, better alignment between federal requirements and green building certification systems could reinforce and continue the important role that green building certification systems currently play within federal portfolios and in causing federal green building activities to leverage the private sector.

The Guiding Principals

Of particular import is that Executive Order 13423 requires that new federal buildings and major renovations comply with the Guiding Principles for Federal Leadership in High-Performance and Sustainable Buildings. The Guiding Principles as last published in the Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Buildings Memorandum of Understanding, approved on December 1, 2008: Employ Integrated Design Principles, Optimize Energy Performance, Protect and Conserve Water, Enhance Indoor Environmental Quality, and Reduce Environmental Impact of Materials. Of import, the Guiding Principles were proposed for revision in 2012, but politics in Washington DC intervened and it is now expected that a revision will take place in late 2013.

Accepting that there is no one homogenized building type, a recent analysis of Department of Defense buildings found LEED 2009 Silver certification, in and of itself, does not satisfy all of the Guiding Principles and by some measures only address 60% or so of the Principles (and Gold or Platinum certification did not measurably improve that statistic).

On February 5, 2013, GSA published a request for information in the Federal Register seeking additional public input on the findings for Green Building Advisory Committee. The Green Building Advisory Committee was established to provide advice and recommendations to GSA to accelerate the successful transformation of the federal building portfolio to sustainable technologies and practices.

The continued use of LEED

According to an article released last week by Federal News Radio, GSA received more than 400 comments from 162 stakeholders from all facets of the building and academic industries as well as local federal and local government agencies. The comments, which GSA will post later this spring, generally supported the four key concepts, especially around adopting an existing third party certification system instead of building a new one. But the one area where there wasn’t agreement on was whether the government should adopt one standard or multiple standards, or give agencies the flexibility to use the green building system standard that meets their individual needs.

The Green Building Advisory Committee took those comments into account when “they made a recommendation to GSA that from the Committee’s point of view, the use of LEED was most conducive to meet the requirements of the Energy Independence and Security Act”, according to Kevin Kampschroer, director, Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings, GSA.

While the Committee’s written recommendation has not yet been made public, it can be deemed reliable that the committee decided by a vote of 10-6 with one abstention to have GSA strongly encourage the use of the LEED standard across the government.

Kampschroer said the written recommendation is going to GSA Acting Administrator Dan Tangherlini.
Tangherlini will review the recommendations and send them to Energy Department Acting Secretary Daniel Ponemon by mid-summer. Ponemon will work with Tangherlini, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other agency experts to come to a final decision based on the recommendations.

Other threats to LEED

And there are other threats to the federal government’s continued reliance on LEED. While on May 8, the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed S. 761, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013 without negative amendment, reportedly, the full Senate will take up possible amendments that would ban the use of LEED on federal projects because LEED is not an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) certified standard, an argument also made before the GSA Committee by attorneys from the Venable law firm representing the Resilient Floor Covering Institute (a trade group with a seat on the board of Green Globes’ parent).

Doing business with the federal government

Those doing business with the federal government, civilian and military, should be cognizant that the GSA is on track to continue pursuing LEED certification for new construction and major renovations. LEED has proven itself the ideal rating system to validate resource use and the associated cost savings. Moreover, LEED has become a key element of disruptive innovation improving the federal government’s knowledge base on high performance buildings and leading the way in private sector installation of cutting edge energy efficiency and sustainability technologies.

If we can assist you in complying with government mandates or otherwise in identifying opportunities to lead and profit in green building and sustainable business, do not hesitate to give Stuart Kaplow a call at 410-339-3910 or email him at skaplow@stuartkaplow.com