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Sustainability means strong finances, a clean environment, and healthy employees and communities. At GSA, sustainability is helping federal agencies meet their missions today, without sacrificing their ability to serve future generations.
With over 9600 federal assets under management, GSA paves the way in sustainable buildings for the government and private sector. From net-zero design, to green building certifications, to green roofs and advanced building technologies, we are proving every day that healthy and productive workplaces, a smaller environmental footprint, and reduced costs go hand-in-hand.
By 2020, all new GSA buildings will be designed to achieve “net zero” energy, water and/or waste. Explore GSA and external resources related to net-zero design.
Green roofs slow stormwater runoff, provide excellent insulation, and reduce the “urban heat island” effect. Tour GSA’s extensive inventory of green roofs, including some of the largest in the U.S.
GSA Proving Ground evaluates pre- and early-commercial stage building technologies, accelerating the transition from bench-scale technology to commercial viability.
GSA acquisition solutions include a full menu of green products and sustainable services—helping agencies save time and money, while meeting sustainability and mission requirements.
Use the Green Purchasing Compilation on SFTool.gov to identify federal green purchasing requirements, review sample solicitation language, and learn where to buy compliant products. Agencies can create custom pages with shortcuts to frequently used products.
GSA helps customer agencies meet environmental requirements by offering thousands of green products through GSA Advantage’s Environment Aisle and GSA Global Supply.
GSA works with service contractors of all types to incorporate green products and practices into their offerings. We also offer a wide array of solutions to directly address environmental issues, such as waste management and energy metering services.
Achieve your agency’s electronics stewardship goals with GSA’s offerings of electronic and telecommunications products and services that save energy, reduce e-waste, and optimize performance.
Fleet: Fast Forward
GSA manages over 200,000 vehicles on behalf of over 50 Federal agencies—the second largest non-tactical fleet in the US Government. From alternative fuels, to electric vehicles, to car sharing, GSA is leading the way in Federal fleet innovation.
GSA offers more than 1,500 models of alternative fuel vehicles with a variety of fueling systems, from hybrid sedans to bi-fuel CNG pickup trucks.
Workplace: A New Way of Working
GSA is creating a 21st century workplace to support wellness, drive down costs, and increase productivity. We help other agencies create a new model of the federal workplace.
Total Workplace is GSA’s integrated approach to sustainable design, flexible workspace, and office technology. To date, Total Workplace has helped agencies save over $70 million while reducing space, cutting carbon, and supporting productivity.
A successful telework strategy allows employees to work productively away from the traditional office. Learn about GSA’s telework projects and see how they can apply to your agency’s workforce.
How can a building promote health and wellness? We are partnering with New York City’s Health Department and Active Design Program, and the US Health and Human Services to develop FITWEL, a voluntary building certification program designed to promote wellness through design, air quality, healthy food options, and exercise opportunities.
Executive Order 13693, Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade, requires agencies to work with suppliers to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Adopting commercial practices for managing supply chain emissions through supplier engagement can encourage efficiency and reduce costs and risks for agencies and industry alike.
The GSA’s Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings established the Green Building Advisory Committee (GBAC) to provide them with advice and recommendations. GBAC’s membership reflects a broad range of stakeholders including senior officials from federal agencies as well as leading green building experts from state, local, private, non-governmental, and academic sectors.
Every five years, GSA evaluates green building certification programs to determine the system(s) to be used across the federal government. To make this evaluation, GSA includes input from agencies, the public, and the private sector. The most recent review was completed in 2012. GSA continues to solicit input through the next review cycle in 2017.
Buy Green Services
USPS Blue Earth Program
A group of federal recycling programs, USPS BlueEarth is coordinated by the US Postal Service® to support sustainability initiatives. These initiatives assist in helping federal agencies and their employees properly dispose of items like empty ink cartridges and unwanted small electronics.
Executive Orders and Statutes
Executive Order 13693
Visit the SFTool.gov enriched version of the executive order, which includes “hot annotations” such as elaborations on policy, explanatory texts, and links to resources.
Results: Making It Count
At GSA, transparency is an important value and a key component of our sustainability initiatives. GSA measures and reports on sustainability as directed by the White House Council on Environmental Quality’s Office of Federal Sustainability and Executive Order 13834.
Sustainability Measures
GSA tracks and reports progress on sustainability measures to the Office of Management and Budget and Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program, as required by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.