November 15, 2002—The General Services Administration (GSA) was honored October 24 at the White House for millions of dollars in energy cost savings. GSA, one of four federal agency winners in the third annual Presidential Award for Leadership in Federal Energy Management, received its award for implementation of energy efficiency tools to help federal agencies meet their energy reduction goals.
GSA created environmentally safe buildings for more than 1 million federal workers across the nation. GSA categorized buildings according to energy efficiency, prioritized project implementation, and provided technical advice or direct funding to its regional offices. Some of GSA’s program highlights include:
- Implementation of seven photovoltaic projects to reduce peak demand;
- Installation of almost $50 million on energy retrofits to achieve savings of more than one trillion Btu; and
- Issuance of 23 energy-saving performance contracts and 21 utility energy efficiency service contracts to finance priority projects, saving almost 535 billion Btu annually.
The Presidential Awards support President Bush’s National Energy Policy, which directs executive departments and agencies to conserve energy use at facilities. Other winners represented the Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, and Department of Health and Human Services. GSA, a centralized federal procurement and property management agency, is comprised of 14,000 associates, and provides services and solutions for the federal office operations in 8,300 government-owned and leased buildings in 1,600 US communities.
