EPA Green Buildings

In This Section

Designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining buildings involves large amounts of energy, water, and other resources and creates significant amounts of waste. The building process also impacts the environment and ecosystem surrounding the building site. Even after buildings are constructed, occupants and building managers face a host of challenges as they try to maintain a healthy, efficient, and productive work environment. EPA addresses these challenges by promoting energy and resource efficiency, waste reduction and pollution prevention practices, indoor air quality standards, and other environmental initiatives for both new construction and existing buildings.

Typical green buildings often incorporate the following features:

Careful site selection to minimize impacts on the surrounding environment and increase alternative transportation options.
Energy conservation to ensure efficient use of natural resources and reduced utility bills.
Water conservation to ensure maximum efficiency and reduced utility bills.
Responsible stormwater management to limit disruption of natural watershed functions and reduce the environmental impacts of stormwater runoff.
Waste reduction, recycling, and use of "green" building materials.
Improved indoor air quality through the use of low volatile organic compound products and careful ventilation practices during construction and renovation.
Reduced urban heat island effect to avoid altering the surrounding air temperatures relative to nearby rural and natural areas.

Learn more about EPA's Green Buildings in the sections below:

EPA's Green Buildings
More on Green Buildings

In the United States, buildings account for:

36 percent of total energy use and 65 percent of electricity consumption
30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions
30 percent of raw materials use
30 percent of waste output (136 million tons annually)
12 percent of potable water consumption

Source: U.S. Green Building Council

EPA's Green Buildings

Best Practices

EPA's Best Practice Lease Provisions are available for use in new lease solicitations. The provisions include sustainable building requirements and other building best practices that EPA aims to pursue in its leased buildings. Learn more about the Best Practice (Environmental) Lease Provisions and download a copy.

GreenCheck

EPA created a form known as "GreenCheck" as a framework for “greening” its real estate projects and streamlining and tracking its facilities’ compliance with federal requirements. GreenCheck consolidates various federal requirements into a user-friendly checklist to be evaluated at the inception of a project. Learn more about GreenCheck and download the GreenCheck form.

EPA leases most of its major office buildings. The Agency works to improve the environmental performance of its leased buildings—often build-to-suit projects—through green lease specifications and riders. These amendments to traditional lease language emphasize energy, water, and resource conservation.

To further carry out its green building mission, EPA uses the LEED® New Construction, a green building rating system, as one tool to help set environmental performance standards for new building design and construction and to provide independent verification of design adequacy and proper construction. EPA also employs the ENERGY STAR® label for buildings; energy efficiency requirements that obtain 30 percent better energy performance than ASHRAE 90.1-2004; and WaterSense® labeled products. Additionally, the Agency has adopted its own water conservation measures; resource conservation, recycling, and use of sustainable building materials requirements; and measures to protect indoor air quality. EPA's Green Buildings Vision and Policy Statement serves as a guide for a holistic, systems approach to sustainable building design, renovation, and maintenance.

The following EPA facilities are actively pursuing or demonstrating green building principles:

Boston, MA - Region 1 Office (LEED-NC 2.2 Gold certified)
Chelmsford, MA - New England Regional Laboratory (LEED-NC 1.0 Gold certified)
Cincinnati, OH - Laboratory Annex 2 (LEED-NC 2.0 Gold certified)
Denver, CO - Region 8 Office (LEED-NC 2.0 Gold certified)
Gulf Breeze, FL - Gulf Ecology Division Laboratory Building #67 (LEED-NC 2.2 Silver certified)
Kansas City, KS - Science and Technology Center (LEED-NC 2.0 Gold certified)
Kansas City, KS - Region 7 Office
Philadelphia, PA - Region 3 Office
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
- Main Building
- National Computer Center (LEED-NC 2.0 Silver certified in January 2005)
- First Environments Early Learning Center (LEED-NC 2.1 Silver certified)
San Francisco, CA - Region 9 Office (LEED-EB 2.0 Gold certified)
Seattle, WA - Region 10 Office (LEED-EB 2.0 Platinum certified)
EPA National Headquarters
- Northern Virginia (LEED-NC 2.1 Gold certified)
- Washington, DC - Federal Triangle

More on Green Buildings

EPA's Green Building website
The Green Building Initiative aims to accelerate the adoption of building practices that result in energy-efficient, healthier, and environmentally sustainable buildings by promoting credible and practical green building approaches for residential and commercial construction. GBI oversees and administers Green Globes™, a green management tool that includes an assessment protocol and a rating system and guide for integrating environmentally friendly design into both new and existing commercial buildings.
Region 3's Green Building website
Additional green building resources and organizations