GSA received $800 million in funding for photovoltaics, green roofs, commissioner reports

Keynote speaker Robert Peck, commissioner, Public Building Services, GSA,gavethe presentation"Green Pioneer--Green Proving Ground," at Ecobuild America, Dec. 9, at the Washington Convention Center.

Per legislative mandate, by 2015, the GSA has to reduce btu per gross square foot by 2 percent per year from 2003 based on existing inventory, Peck said. The agency also will have to apply sustainable design principles, when cost effective, to citing, design and construction of all new buildings.

From the stimulus funding, GSAreceived $5.5 billion, out of which approximately $4.3 billion isdevoted to high-performance green buildings, Peck said.Of that $4.3billion,$800 million is marked for "limited scope projects" that includesphotovoltaics, green roofs, etc.; $3.2 billion is forfull and partial building renovations; and $300 million forsmall projects, he said.

The president calls for a 30 percent portfolio-wide reduction in energy consumption in 10 years, with 2003 asthebase year; a 20 percent water reduction; a 55 percentreduction of fossil fuel-generated energy in new buildings and renovations by 2010; and significant green leasing mandates, Peck said.

"Thirty-five percentretrofit of our inventory--electric lighting upgrades--would achieve 199m kWh energy savings," Peck said, "40 percentretrofit--window upgrades--would achieve 128m kWh."

“Kermit said it’s not easy being green, but it’s getting increasingly easy now,” Peck said. “Green used to be a niche, but no longer. The number of tenants and developers looking for green spaces and green specs have mushroomed in the last several years.”

The GSA has 1,500 buildings and 8,000 that it leases, Peck said. "We’re a green proving ground of what has worked and what hasn’t worked. It takes gumption for us to try anything new, because if anything goes wrong, there are a whole lot of people ready to jump on us, but we’ve still taken on BIM and we're committed to it.”

The first GSA LEED certified building was built in 2002, Peck said. In 2007, GSA achieved 22 LEED buildings. “We have another 23 or so that we lease from the private sector that are LEED certified. Compared to the private sector, we have 22 percent better occupant satisfaction, 26 percent less energy use, 16 percent lower operating cost, and more than 30 percent less CO2 emission,” he said.

The GSA has 9,624 assets, 361.5 million rentable square feet, space for more than 1 million people and 8.6 billion in FY 09 revenue, Peck said.