Best Policy Practices

Best Policy Practices
official stamp of approval to justify sustainable design and
construction work.
The Office of the Federal Environmental Executive
(OFEE) encourages the development of sustainable buildings
using agreed upon criteria that are determined in a scientific
and life-cycle based manner, and that can be verified
by a process that is credible and transparent to the public. To
date, the LEED® has been the most widely available and advanced
mechanism available to do that. As a result, many federal
agencies, including the General Services Administration
(GSA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the
Department of Defense (DOD), have made LEED a policy for
their own facilities. However, we are open to other models and
tools as they become available, and at the same time, applaud
those who use LEED to enhance their buildings and have received
various levels of certification.
In the interim, we are working with the U.S. Green Building
Council (USGBC) to address environmental performance
criteria and standards development process issues as they
move into new standards and later versions of the existing
standards. We are also working with Green Globes and other
organizations as they develop sustainable building standards.
Specifically, the OFEE and EPA are coordinating with ASTM
International (formerly the American Society of Testing and
Materials), to host the first “International Symposium on Common
Ground, Consensus Building & Continual Improvement:
International Standards and Sustainable Building”. The symposium,
featuring peer-reviewed papers from the major players
in sustainable building product standards and rating systems
from around the world, was held in April 19-20 2007 in Washington,
DC.
Link: http://www.astm.org/MEETINGS/COMMIT/e06symp.htm.
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