The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) provides guidance to help agencies comply with the 2016 Guiding Principles for Sustainable Federal Buildings, which were issued by the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) on February 26, 2016.
Six Guiding Principles apply to existing buildings and new construction or modernization:
- Employ integrated design
- Optimize energy performance
- Protect and conserve water
- Enhance indoor environmental quality
- Reduce environmental impact of materials
- Assess and consider climate change risks.
The Guiding Principles are used by the Office of Management and Budget to score federal agencies' progress and compliance within the "Green Buildings" category on annual agency scorecards.
For more information about the Guiding Principles, read:
- CEQ Issues 2016 Guiding Principles for Sustainable Federal Buildings
- Guiding Principles for Sustainable Federal Buildings and Associated Instructions
- Determining Compliance with the Guiding Principles for Sustainable Federal Buildings.
Crosswalk Guidance Documents
To assist agencies with the transition between the 2008 Guiding Principles and the updated 2016 Guiding Principles, FEMP developed two crosswalk guidance documents to explain and highlight the differences between the 2016 and 2008 versions of the Guiding Principles for existing buildings and new construction and modernization.
These crosswalks are based on the evaluation criteria included in the Guiding Principles compliance document and provide an overall comparison of the major scoring and applicability changes between the two versions. They walk through each of the 2016 Guiding Principles and highlight major changes or significant new requirements.
Assessing Buildings and Tracking Progress
The following tools help agencies assess buildings and track progress toward the Guiding Principles.
2016 Guiding Principles
FEMP developed checklists for agencies that want to voluntarily evaluate and track building progress toward meeting the metrics defined by Determining Compliance with the Guiding Principles for Sustainable Federal Buildings.
The checklists provide a quick and easy way to track building performance and can be used as is or reformatted to suit an agency’s needs.
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2016 Guiding Principles Checklist for New Construction: Use this checklist if you are constructing a new facility or planning a major rehabilitation. Provide this checklist to the project team early in the design process.
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2016 Guiding Principles Checklist for Existing Buildings: Use this checklist to establish baseline performance and track progress over time as building improvements are made.
2008 Guiding Principles
ENERGY STAR's Portfolio Manager features helpful tools and resources to help agencies comply with the Guiding Principles.
Agencies can use Portfolio Manager’s Sustainable Buildings Checklist to evaluate sustainability in existing federal buildings. The checklist provides points to consider during building sustainability assessments and a system for tracking progress made toward each Guiding Principle.
Agencies can also use Portfolio Manager to upload compliance documents, create portfolio-wide federal building sustainability roll-up reports, review up-to-date energy and water metrics, and more.