GSA has issued a recommendation to the Department of Energy on how the federal government can best use third party green building certification systems to measure the design and performance of the federal government’s construction and major renovation projects.
"GSA has opened this review to an extensive public process, and we’ve made this recommendation using input from the public, industry stakeholders, and sustainability experts," said Kevin Kampschroer, director of GSA’s office of federal high-performance green buildings.
"We’ve found two tools that allow us to measure how federal buildings of all kinds can best save energy, improve overall performance, and cut down utility costs," he added.
GSA recommended the Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes 2010 and the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design 2009 as the third party certification systems that the federal government uses to gauge energy and environmental performance in its construction and renovation projects.
Other certification systems were not selected because they did not align with the government’s requirements, although GSA said it would conduct more regular reviews in order to keep up with the latest green building tools that the market offers.
