by Brianna Crandall — March 23, 2015—President Obama issued an Executive Order on March 19 calling for massive reductions in energy and water use in federal buildings and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from federal fleets. The Executive Order—Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade is expected to cut the federal government’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 40 percent over the next decade from 2008 levels.
Since the federal government is the single largest energy consumer in the United States, this action is expected to save taxpayers up to $18 billion in avoided energy costs—and increase the share of electricity the federal government consumes from renewable sources to 30 percent. Complementing this effort, several major federal suppliers are announcing commitments to cut their own GHG emissions.
The Executive Order directs federal agencies to:
- Ensure 25% of their total energy (electric and thermal) consumption is from clean energy sources by 2025;
- Reduce energy use in federal buildings by 2.5% per year (from a 2015 baseline) through 2025;
- Reduce per-mile GHG emissions from federal fleets by 30% (from a 2014 baseline) by 2025; and
- Reduce water intensity in federal buildings by 2% per year (from a 2015 baseline) through 2025.
The nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy’s President Kateri Callahan expressed the organization’s support for President Obama’s action, commenting, “The new Executive Order builds on significant progress that the Obama administration already has achieved—a 17% reduction in GHG emissions and a reduction in energy use of 12% in only six years—with a sizeable benefit to Americans in the form of a $1.8 billion reduction in the country’s energy bill.”
In addition to the new directive, the president is using the power of the federal purse to encourage commitments from its suppliers to cut their own GHG emissions. A new Federal Supplier Greenhouse Gas Management Scorecard was released the same morning to track and disclose the self-reported emissions of all major federal suppliers.
According to the related White House Fact Sheet, the federal suppliers combined bring a total GHG reduction commitment of 5 million metric tons between 2008 and 2020. The Fact Sheet details the specific commitments of: IBM, GE, Honeywell, SRA International, Humana Inc., CSC, AECOM, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), HP, Northrop Grumman Corporation, United Technologies Corporation (UTC), CH2MHill, ADS Inc. and Battelle.
