Executive Order 13514

On 5 October, 2009 Obama signed a new executive order for Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance. The executive order defines sustainability as: "the creation and maintenance of conditions, under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations."

It begins:
"By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to establish an integrated strategy towards sustainability in the Federal Government and to make reduction of greenhouse gas emissions a priority for Federal agencies, it is hereby ordered as follows..."

This executive order has a stronger focus on greenhouse gas emissions than its predecessors. It states that DoD (Department of Defense) will set a percentage reduction target using 2008 as a baseline and having the target year of 2020. The good thing about this: it does not distinguish between emissions from the installation and from the field. Previously, emissions from battle were not regulated. The bad thing about this: it does not specify the reduction percentage. For some installations this doesn't matter; their goals as a military installation are more ambitious than the "big" Army's. Additionally, all federal agencies are required to reduce petroleum product consumption by 2% each year until 2020. The order also requires that strategies be put in place to reduce the travel of agency staff but does not give specific direction on this.

Potable water consumption will be reduced by 2% annually until the end of 2020 or an aggregate of 26% reduction, related to 2007. All other water consumption will also be reduced similarly but with the target of 20% by the end of 2020. The Green Procurement requirements already require purchases of WaterSense label items including faucets, toilets, and shower heads.

In regards to waste diversion, the policy states that agencies will reduce waste, recycle, and prevent pollution. They have set a 50% waste diversion goal by 2015. Many individual installations have a more ambitious goal of zero net waste by 2025.

The previous executive order required all new buildings to be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certifiable. Currently the requirements state that by 2020 all buildings will be designed to achieve zero net energy by 2030. The issue I have with these requirements is that they focus on building design, not on actual building performance. There is currently no system in place to ensure that the buildings are actually performing as designed. Additionally, notice the language regarding LEED: certifiable. There currently is no way to spend government dollars on getting the buildings certified so, essentially, there is no certainty that the buildings are actually meeting the standards.

The most reassuring improvement with this executive order is the addition of the Senior Sustainability Officer. This position is held accountable for annually reporting progress of implementing the agency or installation's Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan. Until now there has been no reporting system or accountability, except for EMS (Environmental Management System) reporting. I think this may be key to the executive order's success.

My opinion on all of this (some opinion is peppered through the post): it's not enough. As I've stated before, the government should be leaders, and these goals are not ambitious enough. They should be setting higher standards and using their massive buying power to influence the businesses that they purchase from. The glimmer of hope with this is the grassroots moving that is happening with governmental agencies. There are many champions of sustainability throughout that are the government who are pushing their agency to take on larger goals than the government suggests. In fact, the DoD sets many of its goals based on more progressive installations such as Fort Lewis. This is where the change the government needs will come from.