The Guiding Principles for Federal Leadership in High Performance and Sustainable Building (Guiding Principles, in short) are a set of established criteria developed by the U.S. Government for use by federal agencies committed to "federal leadership in the design, construction, and operation of High-Performance and
Sustainable Building
Green building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planni ...
s".
Following this development effort,
Executive Order 13514 was signed in 2009. Sec. 2(g) requires that: "(iii) at least 15 percent of the agency's existing buildings (above 5,000 gross square feet)…meet the Guiding Principles by fiscal year 2015…”.
The Guiding Principles
# Employ
Integrated Design Principles
# Optimize Energy Performance
# Protect and Conserve Water
# Enhance Indoor
Environmental Quality
# Reduce
Environmental Impact of Materials
Each of these Guiding Principles has multiple criteria, ranging from reducing building energy use to meeting the
EPA
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
's
recycled
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...
content recommendations.
Guiding Principles compliance assessment
To measure compliance with the Guiding Principles, federal agencies have options that include EPA's Federal High Performance Sustainable Buildings Checklist, paper evaluations by internal staff, ''ad hoc'' evaluations by external consultants, and a commercially available product, the Guiding Principles Compliance Assessment Program from the
Green Building Initiative, a
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
The Green Building Initiative developed the Guiding Principles Compliance Assessment Program as a third-party assessment and rating program for federal agencies. This program consists of a survey, third-party on-site assessment, compliance score and rating, and reports. The program focuses on gathering the building documentation necessary for verification of compliance, and providing it to a third-party assessor for review during an on-site assessment.
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References
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Sustainable building in the United States