An under-the-radar U.S. agency is pushing efforts to slash emissions from buildings, marshaling billions of dollars to test and deploy new carbon-cutting technologies and materials at properties owned by the federal government.
The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) was founded 75 years ago to help the national government save money by streamlining operations. It centralized common administrative responsibilities, including purchasing goods and services and overseeing federal many buildings.
Today, the GSA manages one of the largest commercial real estate portfolios in the country. It owns and leases nearly 8,800 buildings, covering 370 million square feet, including offices, laboratories, warehouses, and data centers. Now the agency is racing to decarbonize both their construction and operations.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order in 2021 directing the federal government to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, with its edifices to hit that target by 2045. U.S. buildings present a huge climate opportunity; in their materials and operations, they account for about a third of the country’s emissions, according to the Department of Energy (DOE).
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate investment in history, provided the GSA with $3.4 billion to help decarbonize federal buildings. With this IRA funding, the GSA is not only pushing its own portfolio toward net-zero but is also derisking newer carbon-cutting materials and technologies to drive broader market adoption, GSA administrator Robin Carnahan told Canary Media.
More than $2 billion of this funding is for buying common construction materials, such as concrete, glass, steel, and asphalt, with low amounts of embodied carbon — the emissions produced by making and shipping the stuff. Last November, the GSA announced the funding would flow to more than 150 construction projects across the U.S.
In addition, almost $1 billion of the IRA dollars will go toward evaluating and deploying emerging technologies that can slash carbon emissions from building operations. The agency puts these innovative technologies to the test through an initiative called Green Proving Ground. Established in 2011, the program installs American-made technologies at federal buildings, which scientists at the DOE’s national laboratories then evaluate to gauge their performance under real-world conditions. Along the way, the agencies share feedback with the companies making the technologies, which may not have the resources to do such extensive testing themselves.
By demonstrating these innovations in real settings, Green Proving Ground makes it easier for contractors — the ones who typically decide which energy-saving technologies to install — to see their value, Carnahan said. Of the nearly $1 billion in IRA funding, $30 million is going to this program, which is jointly administered by the GSA and the DOE.
So far, 107 technologies have been evaluated through Green Proving Ground, and 23 of them — including superinsulated quad-pane windows — have been harnessed in more than a third of GSA’s portfolio of government-owned buildings.