Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Background

The Leading by Example Program (LBE) was established by Governor Patrick in 2007 by Executive Order No. 484 and is housed in the Department of Energy Resources. Working with various partner agencies, including the Division of Capital Asset Management, LBE works to meet aggressive energy and greenhouse gas reduction targets resulting from state government operations, including a 40% reduction target in GHG emissions from 2002 and a 35% reduction in energy use intensity from 2004 by 2020.

The LBE Program works with all of Massachusetts' executive agencies and public institutions of higher education, comprising more than 70 million square feet of buildings and 8,000 vehicles and employing over 65,000 people. In addition, the LBE Program promotes other sustainability activities within state government including waste reduction, water conservation, green buildings, alternative fuels, efficient transportation, and recycling.

In addition to the many energy projects recently completed and currently underway at millions of square feet of state buildings, the Commonwealth’s Division of Capital Asset Management (DCAM) has initiated this year a new Accelerated Energy Plan (AEP) that intends to initiate energy efficiency efforts at 35 million square feet of buildings by the end of calendar year 2014. Concurrent with the AEP, both the Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and DCAM are working closely with electric and gas utilities to develop comprehensive and streamlined audit and incentive processes that will address energy use in state buildings as well as other areas, such as outdoor lighting, tunnel lighting and ventilation, skating rinks, traffic lights, etc. Additionally, both DOER and DCAM are in the process of developing new standards for construction and major renovation projects that will create accelerated performance targets for new and existing buildings, as well as expand efforts to rate and label all appropriate state buildings. DOER continues to promote plug-load management efforts, with a focus on implementation of the state’s Computer Power Management Standards across all agency computers. Through the Enterprise Energy management system, a real-time metering effort just underway at 25 million square feet of state buildings, day to day management of energy use should improve, resulting in significant energy reductions. And lastly, DOER continues to explore the use of new technologies designed to reduce energy use and coordinates with DCAM efforts to install such technologies in state retrofit and/or construction projects.