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Federal agencies agreed on Tuesday to take the lead in developing and maintaining buildings that show high environmental performance and demonstrate principles of sustainability.

Nineteen agencies said they will commit to a memorandum of understanding developed by the White House's Office of the Federal Environmental Executive. The agreement establishes common goals for high performance buildings.

The goals are designed to reduce maintenance and utility costs, improve energy efficiency and water conservation, provide safe, healthy and productive environments and promote environmental stewardship.

In signing onto the high performance buildings agreement, the agencies will enter a nonbinding commitment to adopt the goals and to develop implementation plans from a menu of guiding principles. For new buildings, that includes measures related to integrated planning and design, and benchmarks for environmental performance in areas such as energy and water use.

For existing buildings, indoor air quality is a major consideration, and will be addressed through specifications for characteristics like ventilation and moisture control, as well selection of indoor materials like paints, carpets and furnishings that minimize indoor chemical emissions.

"Even if an agency's not making a new building, they can still latch onto this," said Edwin Piñero, the White House's federal environmental executive.

In remarks at a signing event Tuesday, Surgeon General Richard Carmona described health problems such as asthma, allergies and respiratory infections that are linked to poor indoor air quality and said the environmental initiative will help improve employees' health and job performance.

Agencies will be able to tailor their adoption of the buildings agreement by selecting which guiding principles to implement, and by creating their own implementation plans, Piñero said. The environmental advantages gained will show through governmentwide reporting in specific areas such as energy efficiency, he said. But he stressed that "no notable additional reporting" will be required of participating agencies.

The new agreement builds on executive orders addressing energy efficiency and "greening the government" that date back to the Clinton administration, according to Piñero. He said the next step will be to develop more detailed guidelines for agency managers on each of the building characteristics described, and he expects such guidance to be released in about six months.

This agreement comes on the heels of new endorsements for energy efficiency in federal buildings included in the 2005 energy bill.

The federal government owns or leases more than 500,000 buildings encompassing more than 3.3 billion square feet of floor space, according to the memorandum, with the Defense Department, the quasi-governmental postal service and the Veterans Administration managing the greatest square footage. Piñero said signatories to the agreement represent 85 to 90 percent of federal square footage.

COMMENTS

• ". . . Surgeon General Richard Carmona described health problems such as asthma . . . linked to poor indoor air quality and said the environmental initiative . . ." I am not judging the program but want to point out the lack of a definition of environmental! The government wants to call this environmental because it will get congressional funding easier. This really is a safety issue. Environmental should be outside of facilities not inside. This problem particularly is acute in the determination of environmental liabilities for financial statements. Without a clear definition of environmental there is no clear determination of what is reported on financial statements. Everyone connected wants to make as much as possible environmental because they get power and money for environmental. Environmental actions should be normal operations and not an operational unit unto itself. However, "environmental" units get control of money and people and foster processes outside the normal operations of the government. Therefore, "normal" operations have no incentive to incorporate environmental considerations into the work process. Environmental in any government operation should be a audit group to inspect on work processes and tell high level management if they need to improve the operation because of environmental concerns. The EPA muddies the water even more because they get into safety issues. Every government agency needs a strict definition of what is environmental and particularly this is necessary for the public to know what is being presented in financial statements as environmental liabilities. This is a tremendous problem for private companies reporting environmental liabilities as required by the SEC. The SEC needs to write a definition of what is environmental and it needs to be so tight that it fits in the structuring of financial statements. The same is true for FASB. Personally I think nothing should be recognized on the financial statement but the reporting unit only should disclose environment liabilities as a contingent liability in a footnote to the statements. This type of statement by the surgeon general is a source of problems for everyone that he is not even aware of and should be educated about before he generates more ridiculous actions in the name of environmental! Environmentalist Posted February 9, 2006 8:38 AM
• The only environmental friendly building is no building at all! This discussion is about a more efficient and human-friendly building and is not environmental at all! What's up Posted February 9, 2006 8:42 AM
• This is a very important program. Many of these resources are not being replaced, and they are being exhausted rapidly. This includes fresh water, natural resources of all types, fossil fuels, and clean air. Office buildings (according to BOMA studies) consume energy at a rate that is 30 percent of their operating costs. Most of us spend about 85 to 90 percent of our time in the indoor building environment. Employee salary is an important budget line item expense that dwarfs building construction costs, by comparison. It simply makes good sense to have attractive, low cost to operate, healthful, buildings to house our public servants. IAQ continues to be an issue. Employees will be more productive in sustainable buildings. They will miss fewer days of work due to illness or chemical sensitivities due to volatile organic compounds emitted by paints, adhesives, rugs, etc. Building green and sustainable building is the right thing to do for our environment and for resource conservation. It also protects the public by making the most effective use of the taxpayers’ dollars. I have seen the government's utility bills and they are huge. Reductions in energy use translate into real dollars saved by the public. I don't presume to speak for anyone else, but I am tired of paying increasingly larger portions of my income to fuel costs, utility costs, and gasoline costs. Efficiency, conservation, and sustainability is one way to limit these expenses. Kevin Myles Posted January 25, 2006 4:16 PM