Government's Sustainability Moment - CGI Initiative for Collaborative ...

While even Donald Trump mightbe daunted by the sheer size ofPeck’s portfolio, GSA’s aggressivesustainability goals and commitmentto greening the government’swork spaces have upped the antefor Peck. “We’re putting ourselvesout there as a green provingground,” Peck says. “We have thisimperative to green our buildings,and one of the things we can bargainwith is to use our money to bea green test ground for the privatesector industry. We think we cantest out things, like how well solararrays work.”At one GSA building in Indianapolis,for example, there arefour kinds of solar collectors onthe roof to measure which onesproduce the most energy. SanFrancisco’s new federal buildinghas no air conditioning, but lotsof windows that open and it’s narrow,so air can easily flow through.Energy reduction in the buildingwill be significant as a result, andcould be replicated in other temperateclimates. “One of the thingswe can do by being a green provingground is get people comfortablewith being an early adopter oftrying things out that aren’t totallyproven,” says Peck. “It’s an innovativeuse of GSA.”Before Sealed WindowsWhen Peck arrived on the job thistime—he actually headed PBSonce before, during the Clintonadministration—senior staff madea series of wry videos to encourageemployees to see the agencyin a new way. In one, he waswearing a crown and cape, andcarrying scepter—the king of thefederal real estate empire, or sohe appeared. Then he threw offthe crown, cape and scepter tomake his point: Edicts were notgoing to be coming from him. Thesustainability goals laid out for theagency required ideas and innovationfrom everyone in PBS, particularlythose working with GSA’scontractors and clients every day.“The video summed up Bob’sleadership style,” explains a staffmember. “He’s businesslike andinclusive, but also showing in hisactions that it’s okay to have fun.”Bob Peck came back to PBS ata very exciting time in the agency’shistory—with $5.5 billion inAmerican Recovery and ReinvestmentAct money to spend on publicbuildings. The mandates weresimple: spend it quickly for projectsthat will create lots of jobs,and spend $4.5 billion of it makingGSA’s buildings greener and moresustainable. GSA planned threecategories of projects for the RecoveryAct funds: limited-scopeprojects in the highest energyconsumingbuildings in its inventory,major systems overhaulsand infrastructure improvements,and new construction. The limitedscope and modernization investmentswill improve the energy efficiencyand performance of thosebuildings and reduce their energyconsumption by approximately 15percent, based on preliminary designgoals.Interestingly, the staff has discoveredthat greening GSA’s 367oldest buildings, built between1800 and 1941, 1 will not be as difficultas it might have seemed.“Twenty-five percent of our buildingsare historic,” says Peck, “likeour own GSA building.” The GSAheadquarters in downtown Wash-1 “State of the Portfolio FY 2009” GSA Public Buildings Service, http://www.gsa.gov/graphics/pbs/SOTP09_Final_Spreads_508_Compliant.pdf18 Leadership | CGI INITIATIVE FOR COLLABORATIVE GOVERNMENT | S P R I N G 2 0 11