LESSON 1: GUIDING PRINCIPLES COMPLIANCE BACKGROUND
The Guiding Principles are a set of established requirements for Federal agencies for the design, construction, modernization, and operation of new and existing sustainable Federal buildings.
2006
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
2005
2008
HIGH PERFORMANCE + SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS GUIDANCE
2011
GBI LAUNCH OF THE GPC EB PROGRAM
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13693
2017
GBI LAUNCH OF THE DOD GPC NC PROGRAM
2007
EXECUTIVE ORDER 14323
2009
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13514
2014
GBI LAUNCH OF THE GPC NC PROGRAM
2016
GUIDING PRINCIPLES LAUNCHED IN TWO DOCUMENTS
2018
TIMELINE OF THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES
2015
GBI BEGINS DEVELOPMENT OF DOD GPC NC PROGRAM
2006: MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING (MOU)
BACKGROUND AND FEDERAL POLICY
The Federal government owns approximately 445,000 buildings with total floor space of over 3.0 billion square feet, in addition to leasing an additional 57,000 buildings comprising 374 million square feet of floor space. These structures and their sites affect our natural environment, our economy and the productivity and health of the workers and visitors that use these buildings. Therefore, the Federal government is committed to designing, locating, constructing, maintaining and operating its facilities in an energy efficient and sustainable manner that strives to achieve a balance that will realize high standards of living, wider sharing of life’s amenities, maximum attainable reuse and recycling of depletable resources, in an economically viable manner, consistent with Department and Agency missions. In doing so and where appropriate, we encourage the use of life cycle concepts, consensus-based standards and performance measurement and verification methods that utilize good science and lead to sustainable buildings.
ORIGINS AND GOALS OF THE MOU
The origins of the ‘Guiding Principles’ began in 2006, when signatories from nineteen federal agencies signed an MOU, “Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Buildings Memorandum of Understanding”, committing to federal leadership in High-Performance and Sustainable Buildings. This common set of sustainable Guiding Principles were established for integrated design plus operations and maintenance, energy performance, water conservation, indoor environmental quality, and materials.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 13834 RE: EFFICIENT FEDERAL OPERATIONS
TODAY
SESSION 3 | GPCP OVERVIEW 21
Recognizing the Federal government’s responsibility as the country’s largest landowner, the stated aim of these principles is to help Federal agencies and organizations to:
• “Reduce the total ownership cost of facilities;
• Improve energy efficiency and water conservation;
• Provide safe, healthy, and productive built environments; and,
• Promote sustainable environmental stewardship.” 1
2007: EXECUTIVE ORDER (EO) 13423
The MOU led to the signing of Executive Order (EO) 13423, “Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy and Transportation Management,” on January 24, 2007. This EO requires 15% of existing agency buildings to incorporate the sustainability measures of the Guiding Principles by 2015. With this EO, the Federal Government committed itself to providing national leadership in implementing goals and strategies for maintaining high performance and sustainable buildings.
Section 2. Goals for Agencies includes:
• Improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with energy intensity reduction targets for 2015;
• Reducing water consumption through life-cycle cost-effective measures, with water consumption intensity reduction targets for 2015;
• Use of sustainable environmental practices in the use and acquisition of goods and services, with a focus on energy-efficient, water-efficient, bio- based, environmentally preferable, and recycled-content products.
• Reducing quantity of toxic and hazardous chemicals and materials acquired, used, or disposed, including diversion of solid waste in cost effective waste prevention and recycling programs for agency facilities;
• Compliance for new construction and major renovation of agency buildings with the Guiding Principles; and
• 15 percent (15%) of existing Federal capital asset building inventory of each agency comply with the Guiding Principles by end of fiscal year 2015.
In March of 2007 in consultation with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality issued instructions and defined requirements for implementing E.O. 13423. The implementation instructions identify the entities responsible for coordination and oversight of the executive order and define strategies for agencies to meet the requirements.
1 Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Buildings Memorandum of Understanding, (February 2006)
SESSION 3 | GPCP OVERVIEW 22
2008: HIGH PERFORMANCE AND SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS GUIDANCE
To help Federal agencies understand the new Guiding Principles requirements, The Interagency Sustainability Working Group (ISWG) issued “High Performance and Sustainable Buildings Guidance” in December 2008 to assist agencies in meeting the high performance and sustainable buildings goals of E.O. 13423, section 2(f). This document established separate Guiding Principles for Sustainable Existing Buildings and clarified reporting requirements for accuracy and consistency across agencies.
Release of the “High Performance and Sustainable Buildings Guidance” capped off what would become the ongoing revision process: after each Executive Order pertaining to the Guiding Principles is released ISWG issues a guidance document to establish requirements and provide help for Federal agencies.
2009: EXECUTIVE ORDER 13514
In October 2009, the White House issued Executive Order 13514 “Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance,” which did not rescind or eliminate the requirements of EO 13423. Instead, the new EO expanded on environmental performance requirements for Federal agencies, as originally identified in EO 13423. The goal of EO 13514 was “to establish an integrated strategy towards sustainability in the Federal Government and to make reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) a priority for Federal agencies.” 2
2 http://www.fedcenter.gov/programs/eo13514/
SESSION 3 | GPCP OVERVIEW 23
The many requirements outlined in EO 13514 Section 2(g) included:
- that all new construction, major renovation, or repair and alteration of Federal buildings comply with the Guiding Principles;
- that at least 15 percent of each agency’s existing buildings (above 5,000 gross square feet) meet the Guiding Principles by fiscal year 2015; and
-
that each agency make annual progress toward 100% conformance with
the Guiding Principles for its building inventory;
In addition, EO 13514 specified the following targets for agencies:
• Reduce petroleum consumption by 2% per year through FY2020
(applies to agencies with fleets of more than 20 vehicles) (Baseline
FY2005).
• Reduce by 2% annually:
• Potable water intensity by FY2020 (26% total reduction) (Baseline FY2007). • Industrial, landscaping, and agricultural water intensity by FY2020 (20% total reduction) (Baseline FY2010). • Achieve 50% or higher diversion rate:
• Non-hazardous solid waste by FY2015.
• Construction and demolition materials and debris by FY2015. • Ensure 95% of all new contracts, including non-exempt contract modifications, require products and services that are energy-efficient, water-efficient, biobased, environmentally preferable, non-ozone depleting, contain recycled-content, non-toxic or less-toxic alternatives. 2011: GBI LAUNCHES GBI GUIDING PRINCIPLES COMPLIANCE PROGRAM In 2011, the Green Building Initiative (GBI), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization & ANSI Accredited Standards Developer, was asked by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide compliance assessments to the Guiding Principles for over 180 buildings on 11 different campuses to comply with the 2015 deadline as mandated by EO 13514. As a well-established provider of Green Globes sustainability assessment and certification services within the federal sector, GBI created a scoring protocol and assessment methodology to assess and rate compliance to the Guiding Principles.
A GBI Technical Committee, made up of independent sustainability experts, identified documentation needed to verify compliance, and developed a scoring methodology to assign points to those documents to measure levels of compliance based upon the percentage of points achieved.
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS
Buildings must meet the following requirements to be eligible to participate in this program:
• The Federal Government must be the owner or lessee (special considerations for local or state government)
• The building must be at least 5,000 square feet in size
• New construction project may be occupied <18 months
• Major renovations and additions can be certified under this program
• At the time of registration, users will need to determine the program that best fits their project/building. This diagram provides a high-level decision path to help users in that effort.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES COMPLIANCE ELIGIBILITY DECISION CHART