Green Building Initiative Launches Guidelines for Sustainable Federal Buildings

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Green Building Initiative (GBI), based in Portland, Ore., has launched the Guiding Principles Compliance for New Construction (GPCNC) to assess a building’s sustainability. Developed in collaboration with federal government agencies, the guiding principles aim to significantly reduce the amount of time and effort required from federal agency personnel to achieve a green building certification, enabling staff to retain focus on the agency’s mission while concurrently measuring progress towards compliance, according to GBI.

The new GPCNC is a sister product to the Guiding Principles Compliance for Existing Buildings, which has certified 250 federal buildings.

“The GBI’s existing building program has been extremely successful in driving current federal buildings toward higher performance goals with reduced environmental impact,” said Gerry Yudelson, GBI president, in a statement. “The GPCNC program will do the same for new construction and major renovations in a way that’s far more time-efficient for agency staff.”

The program is the first third-party green building assessment and rating program developed specifically to assess compliance with the executive order Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Building. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, the executive order mandates that at least 15 percent of federal buildings and leases over 5,000 square feet must meet Sustainability and Energy Efficiency Guiding Principles by 2015. Annual progress must be made toward 100 percent conformance with an overall goal to achieve net-zero energy for all new federal buildings by 2030.

“It was very important to GBI to respond to President Obama’s impressive leadership goals for energy efficiency and sustainability in federal buildings by creating this low-cost but effective tool for assessing compliance,” Yudelson said.

Projects are rated on a scale of zero to 100 percent compliance; a minimum of 40 percent is required for first level compliance. The compliance assessment and rating system focuses on five key areas: employ integrated design principles, optimize energy performance, protect and conserve water, enhance indoor environmental quality and reduce environmental impact of materials.