Environmental Leader, 05/27/2014

More than 400 federal facilities achieved $42 million in cost savings and environmental benefits last year as part of the Federal Green Challenge (FGC).

A national effort under the EPA’s Sustainable Materials Management Program, the FGC allows federal offices or facilities to pledge participation in reducing the federal government’s environmental impact and recognizes outstanding efforts that go beyond regulatory compliance and strive for annual improvements in selected target areas (waste, electronics, purchasing, water, energy and/or transportation).

Within these areas, additional accomplishments by participants included: diverting more than 500,000 tons of municipal solid waste and construction and demolition waste from landfills, and reducing fleet distance traveled by 16.5 million miles.

Data collected from the challenge show that FGC participants sent 1,765 tons of end-of-life electronics to third-party certified recyclers, minimizing environmental impacts — including water and energy use, releases to air and water, greenhouse gas emissions, and land use impacts.

The US General Services Administration’s new standards for its federal buildings, published in March, focuses more on outcomes, or performance, and less on technology.

The Facilities Standards for the Public Buildings Service, also known as the P100, is a mandatory standard that outlines how facilities will be managed, designed and built to achieve higher performance levels and save energy in the 9,200 buildings the GSA owns and leases across the country. The P100 applies to all new construction projects including additions to existing facilities.