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 Constructing and operating buildings requires enormous amounts of energy, water, and materials and creates large amounts of waste. Where and how they are built affects the ecosystems around us in countless ways. And the buildings themselves create new indoor environments that present new environmental problems and challenges. As the environmental impact of buildings becomes more apparent, a growing field called sustainable building is leading the way to reduce that impact at the source. Sustainable building is the practice of creating healthier and more resource efficient models of construction, renovation, operation, maintenance, and demolition. Research and experience increasingly demonstrate that when buildings are designed and operated with their lifecycle impacts in mind, they can provide great environmental, economic, and social benefits The Federal government is a leader in the field. On January 24-25, 2006, more than 150 Federal facility managers and decision makers came together at the first-ever "White House Summit on Federal Sustainable Buildings" to witness the signing of the "Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Buildings Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)." The MOU was the flagship Federal effort to define guiding principles of green building and provide leadership in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of high performance and sustainable buildings. The five Guiding Principles address:
To build from this and other accomplishments and to pave the way for future success, President Bush signed Executive Order 13423: "Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy and Transportation Management" on January 24, 2007. In the area of sustainable design and high performance buildings, the new EO makes mandatory the five Guiding Principles of the MOU for all new construction and major renovations and sets an aggressive goal for applying these practices to our existing capital assets over the next decade. We welcome your participation and assistance in this important work and hope you will join us as we move forward to make the Federal government's assets and operations more sustainable. Through this webpage and other forums, we hope to share our experience and bring more recognition to those efforts and encourage even greater progress. Provided below are links to various high performance building and sustainable design initiatives and resources:
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