Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Training
    • Class Registration
    • On-demand Training
    • GTPAC COVID-19 Resource Page
    • Cybersecurity
    • Veterans Verification Video
    • GTPAC Community
    • Other Training Audio & Video
  • Useful Links
  • Team Directory
    • Albany Counselor
    • Atlanta Counselors
    • Augusta Counselor
    • Carrollton Counselor
    • Columbus Counselor
    • Gainesville Counselor
    • Savannah Counselor
    • Warner Robins Counselor
  • Directions
    • Atlanta – Training Facility
    • Atlanta – Office
    • Albany
    • Augusta
    • Carrollton
    • Columbus
    • Gainesville
    • Savannah
    • Warner Robins
  • COVID-19
  • New Client Application
  • Contact Us

Green Government: An interview with GSA’s top Green building officials

December 16, 2010 By ei2admin

The General Services Administration (GSA) is one of the largest owners of real estate in the country, composed primarily of office buildings and courthouses, land ports of entry, and warehouses.  The GSA owns and leases more than 354 million square feet of space in 8,600 buildings across the nation.

The GSA is also the owner of one of the greenest real estate porfolios.  As of the summer of 2010, the GSA had 48 LEED-certified owned and leased buildings with approximately 150 more working towards accreditation. Eighteen of those projects exceeded the minimum with LEED Gold certifications, and one GSA lease, the FBI Regional Office in Chicago, achieved a Platinum LEED rating for Existing Buildings.  The GSA has required LEED Silver certification for its projects for some time, and now requires that new Federal buildings achieve LEED Gold certification.

While I was at GreenBuild in Chicago, I had the chance to sit down with Kevin Kampschroer, GSA’s Director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings and Eleni Reed, GSA’s Chief Greening Officer.

We talked about GSA’s experience greening the Federal government’s real estate portfolio, implementing the GSA’s LEED Gold requirement and the challenge–and benefits–of trying to do four times as many contracts as the GSA normally does because of the influx of $5 billion in Stimulus funding. 

Here is what they said:

GBLB: What has the GSA done with the Stimulus money? 

KK: The GSA has a bit of a different position than other agencies because the GSA actually enters into the contracts with builders and other receipients, as opposed to granting funds to states and other entities that ultimately contract with the recipients.  As of the end of September we had awarded $5 billion [for greening the Federal real estate and fleet].  After the award, it takes some time for the contractor to get the contract and hire the people and do the work, but we have made $1 billion in payments so far.

GBLB: What was impact of the Stimulus money on the GSA?

KK:  As a result of the Stimulus, we awarded four times as many contracts as the GSA usually does in the same period of time.  This forced us to find ways to be more efficient in what we were doing.  For example, we started “speed dating.”  Where decisions had to be made, we put all the decision makers in a room togther to come to a decision quickly.  Executives and managers had to delegate some of the decision-making to ensure efficiency. 

Because the projects had to be “shovel ready,” many of the designs were already done.  The designs met our specifications, but were not necessarily the best possible designs–the most you can do with the budget that you have.  Going forward, we are retooling our performance criteria and specifications to spur teams to be more innovative and creative with the budget they have.

For example, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is a net-zero building.  We gave the team specifications, and we incentivized the team by paying them mroe the closer they got to the goals.

For other projects, we had a relatively brief minimum performance criteria which was a goal statement for the project.  It has resulted in more rapid and more innovative designs. However, this requires accepting a shift in risk to the Government side.  But the less risk you take, the less you get [in terms of innovation and design.]

This also has implications for allocating capital.  The GSA has to allow for approximation up front and not require everything to be fixed from the beginning of the project.  

GBLB:  Now that you have all these green buildings, what are you going to do next?  

ER: We are looking to get good metrics about whether we are doing what we set out to do [in terms of building performance].  We have 250 buildings with baseline metrics across a wide variety of project types so we should be able to get some good data. 

GBLB: How will the experience with the Stimulus funds impact the agency going forward? 

KK: We will be more efficient and more effective.  We will have achieved significant improvement in our portfolio [of buildings].  The budget will be extremely lean in the future.  It will be important to apply the lessons we have learned [about how to do projects more efficiently] to operating and maintaining the buildings to prevent deterioration.  We have an opportunity in tracking the performance of the inventory over time and across the portfolio.

GBLB: What about your requirement that GSA projects achieve LEED Gold certification?

KK: We select contractors who know that this is the expectation.  We have been doing LEED Silver for a decade, this is raising the bar to LEED Gold, but the architect and engineering firms know how to do it. 

When we budget the project, we have adjusted the process to allow for LEED Gold certification.  We have done studies on standard versus green construction, you can do LEED Silver for less than conventional construction because of integrated design. 

GBLB: Have you ever had a project fail to get the mandated certification? 

KK: The way we started out was that our goal was LEED Silver.  We have had building that did not reach that level of certification, but never had one that failed to acheive minimum LEED certification.

For more on the GSA’s efforts, Architecture Week had an article by Kevin, and Kevin’s testimony before the House Subcommittee on the GSA’s Stimulus efforts is available here.

–  by Shari Shapiro – Dec. 9, 2010 – Sustainable Cities Collective

0

Filed Under: Contracting Tips Tagged With: energy savings, green, green construction, LEED, sustainability

Recent Posts

  • Georgia Tech creates new Office of Corporate Engagement
  • Federal contractor indicted for stealing over $1.2 million from the U.S. Postal Service
  • SBA hosting “Contract Bonds and Surety Bond Guarantee” webinar April 20th
  • GSA hosting “Getting on the GSA Schedule” webinar April 13th
  • NIH hosting 2021 small business program conference April 26-30th

Popular Topics

8(a) abuse Army bid protest budget budget cuts certification construction contract awards contracting opportunities cybersecurity DoD DOJ False Claims Act FAR federal contracting federal contracts fraud GAO Georgia Tech government contracting government contract training government trends GSA GSA Schedule GTPAC HUBZone innovation IT Justice Dept. marketing NDAA OMB SBA SDVOSB set-aside small business small business goals spending subcontracting technology VA veteran owned business VOSB wosb

Contracting News

Federal contractor indicted for stealing over $1.2 million from the U.S. Postal Service

CMMC announces new advisory council to collect industry feedback

EEOC announces April 26 opening date for the collection of 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 component 1 data

Contractors line up to rebuild MARTA’s Five Points Station

GDOT announces $828.8 million in projects to transform Ga. 316

Read More

Contracting Tips

A whole new marketplace: GSA’s “commercial platforms” initiative

CRS Reports: Mentor-Protégé programs and small business size standards

CRS Report: Small businesses and COVID-19, relief and assistance resources

How do I find out what the government is buying?

Past performance isn’t always a required evaluation factor, says GAO

Read More

GTPAC News

SBA hosting “Contract Bonds and Surety Bond Guarantee” webinar April 20th

GSA hosting “Getting on the GSA Schedule” webinar April 13th

NIH hosting 2021 small business program conference April 26-30th

Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency hosting industry day and matchmaking May 6th and 20th

Missile Defense Agency hosting virtual conference May 11-13th

Read More

Georgia Tech News

Georgia Tech creates new Office of Corporate Engagement

Delta Jacket wins 2021 Georgia Tech InVenture prize

Future of 5G is under the microscope at Georgia incubator

Collective worm and robot “blobs” protect individuals, swarm together

The Partnership for Inclusive Innovation is now accepting applications for pilot programs

Read More

  • SAM.gov registration is free, and help with SAM is free, too
APTAC RSS Twitter GTPAC - 30th Year of Service

Copyright © 2021 · Georgia Tech - Enterprise Innovation Institute