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Two years before President Obama took office and in the midst of some heated arguments on global warming president George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13423. The order created on January 24, 2007, establish goals for the Executive branch in its use of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as:
Using renewable energy, reducing water consumption, purchasing sustainable materials, reducing the use of toxic and hazardous goods, designing new buildings that are sustainable, reducing the use of petroleum, and requirements to use energy efficient tools.
Recently, on October 5, 2009, President Obama signed a new order that “builds on and expands the energy reduction and environmental requirements” of the previous order. This new order raises the bar but, in an overarching view, doesn’t drastically add to the requirements laid out by former President Bush.
Nonetheless, its still a landmark order in the government landscape, establishing such requirements as:
- 30% reduction in vehicle fleet petroleum use by 2020
- 50% recycling and waste diversion by 2015
- 95% of all applicable contracts will meet sustainability requirements
- Implementation of the 2030 net-zero-energy building requirement (buildings that emit no GHG’s)
As this order is implemented, President Obama has asked that every Federal agency set a GHG reduction target within 90 days (January 5, 2010). Then within 240 days, they are to develop a longer term plan for the larger projects involved with those agencies.
This is definitely an exciting time as the ‘energy’ for green initiatives in the Federal government is ‘building’ 
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Very interesting information Steve, as we are evaluating office buildings and looking to move our Navstar office this year, we are making sure the new building we pick is environmentally responsible.
The executive order 13514 signed by president Obama also touches on the energy impact of federal data centers. Federal agencies will now be required to use “greener” servers and implement best practices for data-center management.
Federal Agencies will also have to do some reporting about their IT efforts to comply with the order. That will likely force agencies to spend some money on new software and hardware for measuring purposes. ei. greenhouse gas emissions.
@Joanna – I love the idea of our new space being as green as possible. The sites you have picked out look fantastic and I hope our presence will help them go even greener (we are getting pretty aggressive at the brainquarters on green).
@Corinne – thx for sharing the link to govloop on the go green initiative from the Whitehouse. There will be definitely be some interested folks for green IT now:
http://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/white-house-introduces-green
Just found a link to a nice layout of the new executive order:
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/femp/regulations/eo13514.html