On Feb. 5, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced the opening of a sixty-day public comment period on the federal government’s use of third-party green building certification systems. The 2012 Green Building Certification System Review is available for public comment (ending on April 8, 2013) before GSA develops a formal recommendation on the government’s use of green building certification systems.
Every five years GSA must evaluate green building certification systems and report to the Secretary of Energy the rating system and certification level that would be most likely to deliver high performance and green objectives for federal buildings. The Secretary of Energy uses this report, along with other consultation, to decide which system(s) will be used across the federal government. Following the 2006 review, GSA recommended the use of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system.
For the 2012 review, GSA evaluated three systems: Green Building Initiative's Green Globes (2010), U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (2009), and the International Living Building Institute's Living Building Challenge (2011). According to GSA, the systems were evaluated against 27 new construction and 28 existing building statutory and Executive Order requirements. The study found that Green Globes aligns with more of the Federal requirements for new construction than LEED or Living Building Challenge while LEED aligns with more of the Federal requirements for existing buildings than Green Globes or Living Building Challenge. The 2012 report also found that none of the existing green building certification systems meets all of the Federal government's needs for high performance building metrics and conformity assessment.
Specifically, GSA would like public comment on—
- The finding that, when properly aligned with government requirements, use of green building certification systems saves government resources by eliminating the cost to government of developing its own standards while furthering the policy of reliance on the private sector to supply government needs for goods and services.
- A proposed set of guidelines that should be applied for the use of such systems, especially if an agency will pursue certification. For example, agencies should be encouraged to use only one system at the agency or service level. (See the Federal Register notice for detailed information on the proposed guidelines.)
- A proposed process on how the federal agencies should maintain currency with the evolution of green building certification systems and underlying standards. For example, an agency should automatically adopt the newest version of any standard or green building certification system within one year after it is finalized, unless there is an overt decision not to adopt the latest version. (See the Federal Register notice for detailed information on the proposed process.)
- What the federal government’s role is in evolving green building certification systems, standards, and tools to better address federal agency requirements and needs and support evolution in the market.