Governmental

 

Federal, State, and Local Governments are some of the largest building operators and owners in the United States. Office buildings are responsible in the United States for approximately 39% of all CO2 generation. footnote (1)

 

The Arcalux® team provides sustainable lighting design services that plan for the present and the future by utilizing products such as the SmartFixture™.

 

Background and Federal Policy

 

The Federal government owns approximately 445,000 buildings with total floor space of over 3.0 billion square feet, in addition to leasing an additional 57,000 buildings comprising 374 million square feet of floor space. These structures and their sites affect our natural environment, our economy, and the productivity and health of the workers and visitors that use these buildings.

 

Therefore, the Federal government is committed to designing, locating, constructing, maintaining, and operating its facilities in an energy efficient and sustainable manner that strives to achieve a balance that will realize high standards of living, wider sharing of life's amenities, maximum attainable reuse and recycling of depletable resources, in an economically viable manner, consistent with Department and Agency missions. In doing so and where appropriate, we encourage the use of life cycle concepts, consensus-based standards, and performance measurement and verification methods that utilize good science, and lead to sustainable buildings.

 

The Office of Administration (OA) seeks to improve the environmental performance of all EPA facilities through energy and water efficiency and resource conservation. EPA occupies 175 offices and laboratories nationwide. Of these, approximately 57 are large facilities—those greater than 20,000 gross square feet. The remainder of EPA's facilities are smaller, special-purpose buildings and project offices scattered throughout the country. EPA facilities are either owned by the Agency, owned or leased by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and assigned to EPA, or leased directly by EPA.

 

The EPA’s facility sustainability planning is just one example of government plans to reduce energy consumption. Most Federal, State, and Local government facilities have a mandate to reduce energy consumption.