Report from Washington

Federal FMs Gather in the Capitol  to Promote Energy Efficiency in Buildings

by Eileen McMorrow

The commercial building sector represents 40% of the nation’s primary energy consumption—72% of electricity and 55% of natural gas—exceeding any other sector of the U.S. economy, including transportation and industry, according to the Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook, March 2008. In 2007, greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) emissions from the built environment were 2,317 million metric tons or 39% of total U.S. emissions. That said the use of energy efficient technologies and building designs can reduce energy costs by 60 percent. With a growing emphasis on energy conservation within the federal government, the built environment represents a sector with significant opportunities to reduce the nation’s energy consumption. The National Academies of Sciences’ Federal Facilities Council, in conjunction with the International Facility Management Association, hosted a joint policy forum in Washington, D.C., on September 11 to focus on efficient energy use in buildings.

There is renewed interest in raising the bar on energy efficiency, said John McGee, chairman of the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), in opening the session. “The idea is to cap carbon emissions and reduce energy consumption. The Energy Independence and Security Act of December 2007 calls for energy efficiency in lighting and appliances in use in federal facilities. And facility managers are the focal point for energy savings at government institutions,” Mc Gee added.

Two members of Congress, with diverging points of view regarding environmental and natural resources protection, addressed the gathering of federal facilities managers. Promoting her bill, H.R. 6666, that would prohibit the EPA from regulating GHG via the Clean Air Act, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-7th), detailed her belief that the EPA is cumbersome and needs reform as an agency. “We think (the EPA) is moving ahead with regulatory issues for commercial buildings that will be difficult to adhere to and cost a lot of money to achieve.”  Further, she is pushing for energy independence through the use of coal, nuclear power and drilling in Alaska.

From the other perspective, Congressman Jay Inslee (D-WA-1st), member of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, sees the emergence of building codes that will result from energy policy bills calling for new measures of compliance in 2015 and 2020.

FMs lead the energy revolution

“Facilities managers are the most important leaders in the American energy revolution,” says Inslee. “They will lead in the effort to de-carbonize the economy with job growth that supports clean energy,” he said, in support of his belief in the emerging economy of green-collar jobs.  Inslee reported on his summer visit to Alaska where he witnessed glacial loss, enlarged lakes, and the relocation of arctic villages due to excess methane gasses in the tundra. Further, he detailed his concerns regarding massive climate change affecting the canopy of the rainforest, the loss of the arctic ice shield and the danger of drilling in the Arctic Circle and Alaska. He regularly convenes with scientists who, he says, “are panicked by the planetary emergency.”

Inslee urged facilities managers to make sustainability part of their job. “Talk to anyone in the federal government and explain your capabilities and three things you can do to the highest-level person in the government that you can reach. Use your professional position to lead the charge to protect the environment,” he said.

The Federal Facilities Council, an association of more than 20 federal agencies that co-sponsored the forum, is striving to have an impact on the energy-efficiency of the federal government. “We help federal facilities managers to be cost-effective whether they build new or renovate a facility, so they can support the mission of their agency,” says Lynda Stanley, director of the FFC.

Roughly two thirds of the total federal energy use is for mobility—mostly vehicles, but also ships and planes—and the other third is for facilities. In fact the Federal government’s energy use is probably as complex as most countries as well, with locations across the world, in every climate zone, and a wide range of energy prices and market conditions.

“We need to change forever how we think about buildings,” says David Rodgers, deputy assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. “The U.S. market has more CO2 emissions than Japan, France and the U.K. combined. There is a new measure indicating that by 2030 the U.S. will be adding 1,200 miles of commercial floor space, equal to 580 million metric tons of CO2.”  The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) estimates that two million new buildings will be built between now and 2010 depending on economic conditions. “Together, aging buildings and new construction represent a tremendous opportunity to transform how we design, build, and operate buildings in order to decrease energy consumption in the built environment and reduce GHG emissions,” says Rodgers.

Sustainability = triple bottom line, where environmental, societal and economic considerations are evaluated in all phases of the project: planning and construction, operation, and decommissioning. In 2006, 19 Federal agencies signed an MOU to incorporate these five guiding principles into new construction and major renovations.

According to his department, energy efficiency is the quickest, least costly, and lowest risk path to achieving sustained reductions of GHG emissions. Efficiency bolsters the nation's economic competitiveness and enhances our security. Significantly, robust and evolving arrays of energy efficient technologies are market-ready today at attractive rates of return with enormous untapped potential. In fact, in a 2007 report, McKinsey Global Institute identified energy savings from existing technologies sufficient to cut the growth in global energy consumption by half or more over 15 years.

The Net Zero Initiative

In response to provisions in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched its Zero Net Energy Commercial Building Initiative in August 2008.
To support that initiative, which aims to develop marketable net-zero energy commercial buildings by 2025, DOE also announced a cooperative effort among its five national laboratories through the National Laboratory Collaborative on Building Technologies.

“We are bringing to bear the unprecedented collaboration in scientific resources of five national laboratories to bring about the needed transformation of the built environment, lower our carbon footprint in buildings, and accelerate commercial deployment of clean, efficient building technologies,” said Rodgers.

By 2025, the goal is to enable market-ready Net Zero energy in commercial buildings. As a result, new alliances have formed such as the Retailer Energy Alliance, Institutional Energy Alliance, and the Commercial Building Industry Energy Alliance. This furthers the Commercial Building Energy Alliance (CBEA) which seeks to improve energy-efficiency and performance in new construction by 50 percent in 2015.

Addressing how the federal community is achieving sustainability goals, Matt Gray, chairman of the Intragency Sustainability Working Group (ISWG), Department of Energy, says his agency is working to eliminate barriers to sustainable design and has issued the Whole Building Design Guide (www.wbdg.org) to assist in the process. The ISWG:

• Serves as forum for information exchange
• Advocates for sustainable building practices in new construction and existing buildings
• Eliminates barriers to sustainable design in the Federal sector by developing policy/ technical guidance and other resources.

As one metric of current performance, there are 103 Federal LEED certified buildings as of last week, (representing 19 agencies) which represents about 6% of the total LEED certified buildings. This equals 12 million square feet. This can be compared to the fact that Federal government represents 1-2% of total U.S. building stock. Gray says his agency is leading the pack with green building. “That said, there’s about 3 billion square feet and 500,000 buildings in the Federal government, so clearly, much work remains.”

This graphic represents 103 of the Federal buildings that are LEED-certified. It has taken an average of 2.8 years from registration to certification. GSA managed 20 additional projects with other federal agencies and 23 certified buildings non-Federally owned (mostly build-to-suit lease).

The ISWG has identified five priority areas for sustainable buildings:

1. Focus on Existing Buildings: Sustainable Building Guiding Principles for Existing Buildings
2. Campus or Portfolio Approach to Sustainability
3. Integration: Incorporating Sustainability into Environmental and Property Asset Management
4. Overcoming Cost Barriers: first cost bias, color or money issues, and budget cuts
5. Training and Outreach: e.g. EB assessment tools, LEED EB workshops

To explain how the Department of State is achieving sustainability compliance, Donna McIntire, Sustainability Program Manager, Department of State, says, “To get to the targets LEED requires you do need to pay more so we employ options where it makes sense, not for everything,” says Donna McIntire, Sustainability Program Manager, Department of State. “In some places we harvest rainwater with a $500,000 investment but we get a three-year payback and have an embassy in place for 50 to 100 years, so it just makes sense.”  She adds: Auditing buildings is also a commitment, and it’s web-based, but it helps to baseline what’s happening at facilities.

In closing, Christopher Payne, noted that greening the U.S. Capitol, initiated in 2007 under Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, has been a successful program. Among the initiatives:

1. Operate in a carbon-neutral manner. This goal will be achieved by December.
2. Shift to 100% renewable electric power. Carbon-emissions related to electricity are in check.
3. Aggressively improve energy efficiency. Only natural gas is used for the steam heat.
4. Adopt sustainable business practices. The cafeteria has been overhauled serving more natural foods, using only sustainable server ware, and composting waste. Post-consumer recycled paper is sold in the supply store. 
5. Continue leadership on sustainability issues. Transportation issues for Capitol employees are being addressed.
6. Purchase offsets to ensure carbon neutral operations. Offsets have been purchased amid some discussion about their ultimate impact.