2nd in a series  Fall 2009

The Greening of
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 Welcome To
On the Frontlines:
The Greening of Government
For the past 4 years, I’ve been fortunate
to have the opportunity to work with
many of the top Federal Government
IT Leaders through the production of
our monthly Federal Executive
Forum Programs on Federal News Radio 1500 AM and
www.federalnewsradio.com.
During this time, I’ve heard government leaders tell many
great stories about the progress of our nation’s critical mission
programs. I’ve listened to industry thought leaders describe the
best practices they are using to help government achieve their
missions.
At the core of these activities is the goal of to support,
protect and service the men and women who work “On The
Frontlines”—whether it is overseas, on the border or in the
heartland.
My partners, Jim Flyzik, The Flyzik Group and Jeff Erlichman,
Public Sector Communications and I recognize the dedication
of our government leaders exhibit daily as they combat
terrorism, provide better health care, modernize government
infrastructure, secure computing and Green our government.
We want to tell you some of these positive stories.
The Greening of Government is the first in a series of
“On The Frontlines” digital reports. Each report describes
people and programs advancing innovation and best practices
in major federal major initiatives such as the Greening of
Government. Upcoming reports will target Cloud Computing
and Cybersecurity.
Each “On The Frontlines” digital report is produced using
“Turn Page Technology” allowing you to read and turn the
pages electronically on your computer just as you would with a
print publication.
Additionally, embedded links give you direct access to
websites and white papers; you can watch video clips; and of
course, you can download and/or print a PDF version.
We hope you find the report useful and share it with your
colleagues. Thank You.
Tom Trezza Jr.
Trezza Media Group
ttrezza@trezzamediagroup.com
From the expanses of Yellowstone
National Park to the urban
neighborhoods of Washington DC, the
Greening of Government movement is
alive, well and growing daily.
At one of the country’s national treasures, National Park
officials have set out lofty goals as part of their Yellowstone
Environmental Stewardship (YES!) Initiative.
At the same time, at the historic site of St. Elizabeths Hospital
in Washington DC, DHS and GSA are working together to create
the new Green DHS Headquarters. Both of these programs
reflect the government’s commitment to Greening because it’s
the right way—in fact the only way—to do business that ensures
sustainability.
So, get ready. If you haven’t already been, then you are now
being recruited to be “On The Frontlines” of the Greening of
Government movement.
Greening of Government programs, products, certifications
and policies are focused on sustainability. “Sustainability is a
new way of thinking about an age-old concern: ensuring that our
children and grandchildren inherit a tomorrow that is at least as
good as today, preferably better. We want to make sure that the
way we live our lives is sustainable—that it can continue and keep
improving for a long, long time,” writes EPA on its website.
That was the overarching message I heard from every
person in the public and private sector I spoke with as I was
doing research for this report. There are a lot of great efforts
underway right now. This report describes some of Greening
programs underway at agencies such as the National Park
Service, the Department of Homeland Security and GSA.
We hope you find this report helpful. And of course, we
welcome your comments, commentary and your stories about
“The Greening of Government”.
Jeff Erlichman
Public Sector Communications
jefferlichman@publicsectorcommunications.com
The Greening of Government 3
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DHS Goes Green! See page 22
Inside
“The Greening of Government”
6 A Sustainable Strategy
Executive Order 13514 sets the goals. Leaders from EPA, DOE,
GSA and DHS talk about what they are doing.
10 Embrace Telework
Telework today! Reduce your agency’s carbon footprint.
Visit www.telework.gov to start now!
12 Buying Green Saves Green USCG Entry Courtyard
The emphasis on buying Green products for government use
and plus buying from suppliers who are Green themselves is only
going to grow.
14 Your Green Advantage
GSA’s Emile Monette tells you how to use GSA Advantage to your
(green) advantage.
16 Who Certifies The Certifiers?
Who ensures that if a company says their product is Green,
it truly is?
Yellowstone Gallery. See page 21.
2nd in a series  Fall 2009
Why Is He So Happy? See page 18
18 Greening Where It Is Green: Yellowstone National Park
With the Yellowstone Environmental Stewardship or YES!
Initiative, the Park is demonstrating that the world’s first
national park is also a world leader in its sustainability programs.
22 Greening Where It Is Urban: DHS In DC
At St. Elizabeths in Washington DC, the site of the new DHS
headquarters &campus,
InteriorDHS
Lobby
is proving homeland security can be
Green, historic and secure.
Where New Construction and Historic
Rehabilitation Meet 24
The St. Elizabeths DHS headquarters is the largest project
that GSA has ever undertaken says GSA’s Bart Bush.
26 Resource Center
Learn more about the Greening of Government through links to
Videos, Websites and White Papers
28 Follow My Example
Many in Industry are Greening themselves because it is not only
good for the environment, it’s good for business.
30 Greening Via Virtualization
Go Green, boost performance and spend less in the process with
virtualization technologies.
32 Viewpoint—Jim Flyzik
When you think about it—it really is a “no-brainer” since there
really are very little downsides to the so called “Green” initiatives.
The Greening of Government 5
 US Coast Guard Headquarters Aerial Perspective, October 6, 2009;
View complete documents at www.stelizabethswestcampus.com

A Sustainable USCG Aerial Perspective

Strategy
White House Executive Order 13514
establishes an integrated strategy
towards Federal sustainability and
makes reduction of greenhouse gas
By Jeff Erlichman, Public Sector Communications emissions a priority for agencies.
6 The Greening of Government
 Leading By Example
Senior executives from EPA, Energy, GSA and DHS presented
their agency’s green programs, priorities and opportunities
during recent Federal Executive Forum panels on the “The
Greening of Government”.

Ed O’Hare
Assistant Commissioner
Integrated Technology Service, Federal Acquisition Service
GSA
“There are
tremendous
opportunities
for energy
efficiency. Just
take one small

W
e all know intuitively that Green is good for the component,
environment. Green is good for your health. Green desktop
is good for your budget. Green reduces your carbon computers.
footprint. Green saves you money. There are 100
Most important: Being Green ensures sustainability—fulfilling million office watch video
our needs now while making sure future generations are able to computers in
meet their own needs. the United States. Of those 100 million 60% are not turned
off at night. They waste half of the energy they consume; 30
Currently, the government occupies nearly 500,000
to 40% have no power management on the monitor; 90%
buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles, employs more
have no power management on the PC itself. Just buying
than 1.8 million civilians, and purchases more than $500 billion
the products and services we provide is just going to afford
per year in goods and services. With that kind of physical, human tremendous Greening opportunities…”
and financial impact, when government goes Green, the entire
nation will follow. Vaughn Noga
The Obama Administration took another huge step towards Acting Chief Technology Officer and Director of
Greening government with its October 5, 2009 Executive the Office of Technology Operations and Planning
Order 13514: Federal Leadership In Environmental, Energy and EPA
Economic Performance. “One thing we are
The order says: “to establish an integrated strategy towards looking at right
now is leveraging
sustainability in the Federal Government and to make reduction
technologies to
of greenhouse gas emissions a priority for Federal agencies, the
reduce the traffic
Federal Government must lead by example.”
associated with
Developed by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), conferences and
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of meetings and
the Federal Environmental Executive (OFEE), with input from the such. We are in
Federal agencies, the new Executive Order requires agencies to the early stages
measure, manage, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions toward of evaluating
watch video infrastructure and
agency-defined targets.
It describes a process by which agency goals will be set and looking at what is available and what is possible and what the
reported to the President by the Chair of CEQ. The Executive future is like for web and video conferencing...
Order also requires agencies to meet a number of energy, water,
and waste reduction targets, including:
• 30% reduction in vehicle fleet petroleum use by 2020;
• 26% improvement in water efficiency by 2020;
• 50% recycling and waste diversion by 2015;
• 95% of all applicable contracts will meet sustainability
requirements;

The Greening of Government 7

 Jake Wooley
Deputy
Director
Department of
Energy
“Under the • Implementation of the 2030 net-zero-energy building
sponsorship requirement;
of our DOE
• Implementation of the storm water provisions of the Energy
federal energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007, section 438; and
management
• Development of guidance for sustainable Federal building
program
watch video locations in alignment with the Livability Principles put forward
office, the DOE
data center working group has an initiative to baseline all by HUD, Transportation and EPA.
data centers within DOE and that includes all those that are Implementation of the Executive Order will focus on
federally owned and operated and contractor owned and integrating achievement of sustainability goals with agency
operated and determine where some of the efficiencies can mission and strategic planning to optimize performance and
be gained using some of the business practices that have minimize implementation costs.
been developed…” It directs each agency to develop and carry out an integrated
Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan that prioritizes the
Donald Bathurst
Chief
Administrative
Officer
Department
Leaders are counting on
of Homeland
education, communication,
Security cooperation, technology and
“In addition to partnerships to be the clean
our data center fuels powering the Greening
consolidation of Government.
efforts, we are
watch video
also looking
to bring better renewable and distributed generation type
technologies to our buildings...(and)looking to build a better
agency’s actions toward the goals of the Executive Order based
renewable energy base for our buildings…”
on lifecycle return on investments. Implementation will be
Kevin Kampschroer managed through the OFEE, working in close partnership with
Acting Director OMB, CEQ and the agencies.
Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings Government is mobilizing all its resources and finally has the
Public Buildings Service will to lead by example.
GSA Leaders are counting on education, communication,
First of all, no cooperation, technology and partnerships to be the clean fuels
question that powering the Greening of Government.
our top priority The final additive—and the most important ingredient for
is reducing
success—is you being involved—”on the frontlines”—now! n
energy
consumption Source: Executive Order 13514, October 5, 2009.
…the second
thing is really
looking at the
measurement
systems that we
watch video are using. We
don’t really have
a system of measurement that gets at the holistic function of
the building; the building only exists as a tool to do something
else, so you can save energy in a building, but if you don’t use
a building at all you save 100%...”

8 The Greening of Government

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Embrace Telework
Telework today! Reduce your agency’s carbon footprint.
Visit www.telework.gov to start now!

78
Executive Branch agencies submitted data for OPM’s Objection Overruled: Productivity Suffers
2009 Telework status report to Congress. One primary objection often cited by management is that
The report said trends have remained relatively productivity suffers.
stable over time, with incremental increases and occasional But you’ll never know until you really, really try. For example,
decreases showing overall slow but steady growth. at DHS, Chief Administrative Officer Donald Bathurst told the
For 2008, agencies reported that: Federal Executive Forum audience that DHS has been working to
• 102,900 employees were teleworking get on the telework bandwagon.
• 64% of these employees were teleworking relatively frequently “You may have heard our Undersecretary for Management
(either 1-2 days a week, or 3 or more days per week) has declared that this week (September 28, 2009) at all
• Almost half of the agencies had not fully integrated telework components anyone who can telework must telework or
into their Continuity of Operations (COOP) planning should telework one day this week. In fact my entire office,
• Office coverage and management resistance were considered except about 3 or 4% that needed to be on the grounds,
the largest barriers to implementation ground, will be out on Friday. So again getting cars off the
In terms of sustainability, those road and testing our networks
numbers have to rise dramatically and our productivity and our
for us to ensure we are preserving ability to work in a distributed
the environment for future fashion.”
generations. So, if your agency Houston Taylor, GSA’s Deputy

T
has not embraced telework, the Assistant Commissioner for
question becomes: How much elework not only lowers Acquisition Management, put it
more do proof do you need? the government’s carbon this way in a recent interview.
footprint and energy use, it is “We are committed to
Proof: Telework Saves Energy an essential element of your reducing our carbon footprint,
There are many statistics proving agency’s COOP strategy. not just with goods and services,
how telework saves, but here’s one but even down to the behavior
more. within the workforce, such as
In August, when the air how we embrace the concept of
conditioning and energy telework. When you talk about
consumption is usually the largest, Greening the government, it’s
Citrix, HP, Microsoft, Intel got just not goods and services;
together as corporate sponsors it’s the behavior inside the
for Power Down IT Day. organization and outside.”
The day was organized as an awareness campaign of how “So, it’s one thing to say an agency supports telework, it’s
much energy can be saved if we just turn off our computers, something else to actually execute it. So, what does that have
monitors and printers when we leave the office. to do with Greening? If you are driving your car less and you
They determined that doing that would save 13 kilowatt multiply that by the people in the workforce that telework, then
hours for those government workers who go home at 5 o’clock you’ve just reduced the carbon footprint.”
and come back at 9 o’clock the next morning. 5,600 staffers Telework is a part of the solution. You reduce the emissions
participated. It resulted in a savings of 72,800 kilowatt hours. gases; you reduce the overall congestion; and you reduce the
That’s $73,000 in savings. You multiply that across a working time it takes the rest of those that need to be on the road to
year, that’s over $2.6 million that we save in energy costs. And get to work, so there’s a huge ancillary Greening benefit from
that’s only 5,600 employees. telework projects.
Imagine the savings if these staffers teleworked and their What are you waiting for? Be part of the solution. Go to
computers weren’t turned on at all! www.telework.gov now! n —Jeff Erlichman

10 The Greening of Government

www.GreenGovernment.us.com
 Buying Green Saves Green
The emphasis on buying Green products for
government use—plus buying from suppliers who
are Green themselves is only going to grow.

Growing Emphasis “It changes behavior of contracting officers and changes

The emphasis on buying Green products for government and behavior of industry; it changes how GSA offers our goods and
buying from suppliers who are Green themselves is only going services. And so to that point, we need to get out to industry, to
to grow. the contracting officers, to the federal agencies and show them
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 and Presidential Executive how to do it.”
Order 13423 (January 24, 2007) So, what does Green mean to a
require federal agencies purchase contracting officer that’s putting
products that meet Energy Star and out a request for quote? How do
other environmentally responsible you take a statement like “Green
standards. Now there is the your procurement” and create
Obama Executive Order 13514 on performance measurements and
Sustainability to follow. issue an RFQ that embraces Green?
Beginning in FY2011 each “When you break that down
agency will produce a Strategic even further, now we are trying to
Sustainability Performance Plan that
will prioritize agency actions based T he challenge is to educate
reduce our energy consumption 3%
annually through 2015 or 30% by
on lifecycle return on investment. the credit card holder to the end of 2015,” explained Taylor.
Both the Plan and annual update think Green consciously COs are just starting to figure out
need OMB approval. Adhering to the before buying a $50 what goods and services Industry
Plan changes the criteria program item or that $200 item. has to offer. It’s an ongoing learning
staff and their contractor partners While that’s nickels and process for both government and
use to choose product solutions. dimes from a government Industry. When you don’t know all
It will also put new pressures perspective, there are a lot the answers, desired outcomes are
on Contracting Officers to of buyers who can make a always moving targets.
follow regulations that take into huge difference by Greening
consideration environmental their buying habits. Executing A Green Procurement
measures as well as economic “Right now our contracting officers
and social benefits and costs in need to understand better how
evaluating projects. to effectively execute a Green
procurement,” said Taylor.
Educating Contracting Professionals “It comes back to the fundamental concept of evaluating
On the frontlines of Green procurement programs at GSA is the necessary consistency between their RFQ and what’s in the
Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Acquisition Management, technical evaluation that results in an award that is the best
Houston Taylor. value to the government—and is in fact Green. We are learning.
“We’ve got a work force in the federal contracting Agencies and program officers are learning as well.”
community that we ask to do an awful lot,” Taylor said in a
recent interview. “We ask them to understand all the rules and Attention Government Credit Card Holders
regulations of the Federal Acquisition Regulations and now we Every day, buyers with a government credit card buy items up
are really pushing them with Green.” to $3000 with no competition needed. “We call it nickels and
Taylor stressed it’s going to take a concerted effort to dimes, but that’s billions of dollars,” explained Taylor.
teach Green purchasing skills because everyone has to Through education, Taylor wants to change behavior at the
change their behavior. grass roots level. “That’s where you have to get too. It’s one

12 The Greening of Government

 watch video
GSA’s Ed O’Hare on Buying Green

thing to say you recycle at home; but that’s not Green. It’s a step customer view what goods and services we offer.”
but that’s not Green. If we are truly going to embrace this and Taylor described how the GSA FAS has immersed itself into
have a passion, the first thing let’s talk about us as stewards and a working group with the Office of the Federal Environmental
tax payers. How do we get out and change that behavior?” Executives (OFEE) to share what GSA can deliver across the
The challenge is to educate the credit card holder to think board.
Green consciously before buying a $50 item or that $200 Further, GSA is moving ahead on a comprehensive energy
item. While that’s nickels and support program offering
dimes from a government everything from baselining
perspective, there are a lot of energy usage in a facility all
buyers who can make a huge Green Education the way through providing
difference by Greening their the products and services
buying habits. GSA’s Houston Taylor had talked about the importance needed to reduce an agency’s
of educating the Contracting Officer community.
“Let’s change that carbon footprint.
“We are in the process of rolling out formal training;
behavior. Let’s track that. Stay tuned for these new
providing a one day training course on Green. We’ve
Let’s educate. It needs to programs. Right now you can
actually done it and it’s in a pilot phase right now in the
be a normal behavior to buy FAS, Treasury and VA.” visit www.gsa.gov/green to
environmentally safe goods Taylor said the course covers how to put performance find all current GSA Go Green
or services when I am making measures in your SOW that are quantifiable in terms of Environmental Initiatives.
the purchase,” added Taylor. quality, quantity, timeliness, whatever the measure is.
“Yes it is only $100, but let’s “We have some examples and templates, so it’s heavy on Works In Progress
buy it the right way. And I facts and it is light on fluff. I say it’s in the development In addition, Taylor said
think that’s a fundamental phase because quite frankly we’ve gotten feedback on a work in progress is an
grass roots thing and I think the course on things we need to do better, and we are environmental management
working that.”
until we get to that level we system which would offer one
Taylor hopes to have a formal course formal course
are not going to be totally portal, one stop shopping
that will be available to federal agencies across the
successful.” where agencies, where the
spectrum in the very near future.
contracting specialists can go
Strategic View to get the information they
Taylor said from a strategic need.
view the key elements of the “If you are looking for
Greening of government are something under PBS you
partnerships, relationships could probably find everything
and communications. that’s functionally under the
“The Federal Acquisition PBS; Fleet has their piece;
Service (FAS) has over FAS has their piece. That’s
the last year established part of them maintaining their
partnerships with strategic business lines, but acquisition
agencies such as the Office management role is to bridge
of Environmental Executives, all that and bring it in to one
EPA, DOE and OMB, making common portal. And we are
sure they understand from building that right now as we
a policy view and from a speak.” n —Jeff Erlichman

The Greening of Government 13

Your Green Advantage
Attention contracting officers, program managers and credit card buyers!
Visit the Environmental Aisle on GSA Advantage today!
GSA
Advantage (www.gsa.gov/advantage)
is a powerful tool people can use
for research and find sources for
environmentally friendly or compliant items available on GSA
contracting vehicles. It is a platform for federal agencies to build
a relationship directly with firms already pre-qualified with GSA
contracts.
On the frontlines of GSA’s Green government efforts is
Emile Monette. He is the director of Program Analysis for GSA
Advantage. He first came to the GSA Advantage program office
in 2004 after working as an Air Force Contracting Officer. In 2005
he went on detail to OFPP; then he worked for Representative
Tom Davis for two years, followed by a short stint this year at the
Executive Office of the President.
He recently re-joined GSA. Recently we talked about GSA
Advantage and how it is helping government make better Green
buying decisions.
JE:: Describe the GSA Advantage Environmental Aisle?
EM:: What we’ve done within GSA Advantage is set up this sub
web page that’s called the Environmental Aisle. If you go on to
the front page of GSA Advantage on the left hand side there’s a
link that says ‘Go Environmental or Go Green’ and that link will
pop you right into the Environmental Aisle.
It is basically a web page within GSA Advantage that buyers
can select which environmental attributes they are looking for
a given product. It’s a very simple interface for the user to gain
access to products that are either ENERGY STAR or EPEAT or
FEMP or the various other designations that we have there.
JE:: Can you describe the navigation?
EM:: There are little radio boxes there and they check next
to ENERGY STAR, so if you are looking for ENERGY STAR
appliances for example, type appliances in the search box and
check the little ENERGY STAR box and hit the search button
and it would pull up a list of all the ENERGY STAR compliant
appliances that are on the schedule.
This is a simple tool. As a former contracting officer I know
14 The Greening of Government
that you are buried in work…there is a thousand things you have
to do and boxes you have to check and somebody comes along
and says, make sure you check the green procurement box, it’s
just another headache.
But it’s something that will make a significant and real impact,
on not just on how we live but on how generations to come will
live and it’s a simple tool that we’ve put together. You go in; put
your search criteria in; click a couple of boxes and you get a list of
products that meet your environmental criteria.
JE:: But if somebody were coming to GSA Advantage, they could
bypass this page, couldn’t they?
EM::That’s correct. But say someone was buying some sort
of appliance and went to purchase that piece of equipment…
when the customer goes to their shopping cart to check out,
if the item has ENERGY STAR or FEMP products available and
this person is selecting to purchase one that is not green, when
they go to check out a little pop up screen will come up and it will
say, there is an ENERGY STAR or FEMP compliable product is
available here and you are not purchasing it be aware and if you
want to continue then you have to hit continue.
But it is a notification that tells them there are these
products available and you are not buying one right now. We
don’t mandate that people only buy these types of products but
they are preferable. And the Advantage website does a pretty
job of alerting people to the fact that.
JE:: What’s in the future for Advantage?
EM:: We are constantly looking to make it better. We are
continuously engaged in getting feedback from our customer
agencies, from our contractors to make sure that we are putting
something out there that is the best thing available that we can
do. We try to make this a collaborative effort between all of our
federal agency customers and our contractor community. If we
don’t do that we are falling short.
This collaboration amongst agencies is trying to drive
a more sustainable government in terms of acquisitions.
And so we collaborate with these other agencies to put the
designations out there so that other acquisition professionals
can find easy access to them and get quicker search results
from GSA Advantage, more meaningful search results, and
what they do with that information is up to them. We are trying
to give them the tools they need to be more sustainable in their
acquisitions. n —Jeff Erlichman
 Access Free On Demand Video from
Federal Executive Forums
with Government and Industry Experts
Trezza Media Group and The Flyzik Group have part-
nered to produce The Federal Executive Forum — a
monthly series of radio & video broadcast
roundtable conversations discussing technol-
ogy and business mission issues affecting
federal government agencies.

Broadcasting since 2007, more than 50 Fo-

rums have been aired. All 1-hour Federal Ex-
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WFED and FederalNewsRadio.com. Many
have been video taped for on-demand view-
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View Now —Available FREE &On-Demand at FederalNewsRadio.com

Greening of Government— March 2009

Listen and View
Windows Media Format

Panelists: John Johnson, Assistant Commissioner, GSA (CIO); Kevin Kampschroer, Acting Director, Office of Federal High
-Performance Green Buildings, Public Buildings Service, GSA; Myra Galbreath, Director, Office of Technology Operations and
Planning and CTO,EPA; Carl Staton, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U. S. Department of Energy

Greening of Government— October 2009

Listen and View

Windows Media Format

Panelists: Ed O'Hare, Assistant Commissioner, ITS-FAS, GSA; Vaughn Noga, Acting Chief Technology Officer and Director
of the Office of Technology Operations and Planning, EPA; Jake Wooley, Deputy Director, Dept of Energy; Donald Bathurst,
Chief Administrative Officer, DHS

The Trezza Media Group and The Flyzik Group

in conjunction with
Federal News Radio AM 1500 WFED
present the
Federal Executive Forum
 Who Certifies The Certifiers?
Who ensures that if a company says
their product is Green, it truly is?
P
ut on your consumer hat. When you shop, let’s say for a
washer/dryer, as a wise consumer, you check the ENERGY
STAR ratings before spending your dollars, don’t you?
Last year alone, according to DOE, Americans, with the help
of ENERGY STAR®, saved enough energy to power 10 million
homes and avoid greenhouse gas emissions from 12 million cars.
All while saving $6 billion.
But while ENERGY STAR is certainly a success, it has not
been without controversy.
As reported by the Environmental News Service in its
December 31, 2008 article, ENERGY STAR Climate Change
Claims Misleading, Audit Finds, the EPA Inspectors General
released its report on the ENERGY STAR program. The audit
found the program claims regarding greenhouse gas reductions
were inaccurate.
This raises questions not about whether or not ENERGY
STAR is worthy, but about “who certifies the certifiers?” Who
ensures that if a company says their product is ENERGY STAR
compliant, it truly is?
16 The Greening of Government
GSA’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Acquisition Houston
Taylor says government is working hard to figure it all out.
“There’s no easy answer. There’s a proliferation of
certifications going on right now. People are showing up and
saying, ‘I’m certifying my goods, I’m certifying my products’.”
Taylor stressed the fact that when you talk Green, you have
to talk about certifications.
“You are talking about does the item do what it’s advertised
to do? These are the things we are getting out in front of right
now. We are sitting down with EPA and Energy trying to establish
memorandums of understanding with regard to ENERGY STAR
and the definition of those items.”
No one is suggesting eliminating ENERGY STAR
certifications. In fact the opposite is true; government is trying
to bolster the credence of the certification. No matter the
definition, buying ENERGY STAR is a good thing.
GSA has already taken steps to aid buyers. On the GSA
Advantage website there are icons describing different types of
certifications. So, if you went on to Advantage today to buy an

There are certifications all over
the place, but there is no one
standard; and that’s part of the
challenge when you talk about
Greening the government. Where
do you go? What is the baseline?
ENERGY STAR refrigerator, if the item wasn’t ENERGY STAR you
would get a pop up box warning.
“It would tell you ‘contracting officer, you are about to buy an
item that is not ENERGY STAR.’ That is a shift in knowledge with
education trying to change behavior,” Taylor explained.
“What we are looking for the CO to do at that point is to stop
and look at the other products that are ENERGY STAR. That’s
a big step for us. We didn’t have that 6 months ago, and we’ve
got that now. So we are executing a vision and we are trying to
change behavior recognizing that that’s not something that you
do overnight.”
Green Standards Vary
There are certifications all over the place, but there is no one
standard; and that’s part of the challenge when you talk about
Greening the government. Where do you go? What is the baseline?
According to Taylor, if you are talking about buildings, you
are talking about LEED (Leadership and Energy Environmental
Designs). If you are talking about a product, you are talking
about ENERGY STAR in some instances – but not in all instances.
“You can even step back further than that. From the time
that you start planting a seed, there are certifications on how
you grow a tree, how you harvest the tree, how you mill it, and
turn the product that comes out all the way back to the backside
of it which is the recycling piece of it.”
“There are certification points all along the way. That’s
something government has to figure out, who is going to
regulate that and control it, because there are varying degrees
of certifications. That’s not an easy question to answer. I think
it depends on the environment that you are in and the type of
procurement that you’ve got.”
“Right now there is a patchwork of entities controlling these
certifications.
I would say that it is industry controlling certifications right
now. The Federal government doesn’t establish those. That’s
part of the challenge, that those certifications are popping up
and there is no regulatory body, with the exception of ENERGY
STAR and FEMP. If you move away from them, even LEED is
commercial for that matter. So industry is a big player here.”
Go to the Advantage website and you’ll find 30 or so icons
that a buyer can use to see how environmentally friendly a
product or service it. Few are regulated by government. So, we
need to figure out a way to regulate and control certifications
and answer the question, “who is certifying the certifiers?” n
Sustainability: A Smart Buy
Sustainability is not just buying the right product, it’s
taking a whole approach to the problem says GSA’s Ed
O’Hare.
“We’ve identified a set of products—green products—
within a sustainability framework that IT people can buy
what they need to do power management right down to
the desk top,” said O’Hare.
“So I’m a CIO and I have a desk top infrastructure of
1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 PCs. They consume a lot of
energy. We have identified—under what we call a “Smart
Buy” procurement—those power management tools
readily available to the federal government.”
A Smart Buy is a secondary procurement around
a specific requirement. For power management, GSA
issued a BPA.
“Then we make an award off the Schedule at better
than Schedule prices and group them together so
agencies can find them right away and get them at lower
than Schedule prices,” noted O’Hare. “And they can even
potentially get additional discounts.”
Get this good deal at www.gsa.gov.
The Greening of Government 17
Greening Where It Is Green:

Yellowstone
National Park
By Jeff Erlichman, Public Sector Communications
 With the Yellowstone Environmental
Stewardship or YES! Initiative, the Park
is demonstrating that the world’s first
national park is also a world leader
in its sustainability programs.
W
hy are these elk so happy?
Because this bull and his entire harem have 15
acres of prime Kentucky blue grass—cut, watered,
fertilized and meticulously maintained with nary a weed—to
graze on leisurely.
“An animal jam”—which could be anything from a chipmunk
to a grizzly bear, but in this case elk —is the first thing you might
encounter when you drive into Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming,
home of Yellowstone National Park Service headquarters.
I know I did. Magnificent to behold, they are the center
of attention of both visitors who want to get “up close and
personal” and Park Rangers whose duty is to keep them at a
safe distance and while directing “animal jam” traffic.
I came to talk with Jim Evanoff, Environmental Protection
Specialist at Yellowstone. He graciously agreed to spend a few
hours educating me about Yellowstone’s history, environmental
challenges and what Yellowstone is doing to meet them. Then he
took me on a tour of Yellowstone that was truly spectacular. If
you’ve been there you know what I mean. If not, go.
In his 29 years in the NPS, Evanoff has worked in the Grand
20 The Greening of Government
Tetons and at Mount Rushmore, where one of his duties was
to repel down the faces of the Presidents and pull plants from
cracks in the carvings.
The past 20 years he’s been at Yellowstone. Now, as
Environmental Protection Specialist, he is on the frontlines of
Greening of Yellowstone efforts. A big part of that job is building
and maintaining relationships both public and private.
“When Congress passed legislation for Yellowstone as the
nation’s first national park in 1872, there was a double mandate—
preserve and protect the park and provide for the enjoyment of
the people. That’s a really tough balancing act that we still are
given today,” explained Evanoff.
Preserve and Enjoy
Evanoff recounts a Yellowstone history that is full of pendulum
swings between “preserve and enjoy”. Today everyone is working
hard to establish a balance that enhances both. (What’s more,
when you look at some of the historic photos – especially of how
visitors used to be encouraged to feed the bears and fish with no
limits – you wonder: “what were we thinking?”)

In 1997, during Yellowstone’s 125th Anniversary, Evanoff said
the staff was asking the hard question: “What we were going to
do for the next 125 years to preserve the park?”
Out of those discussions Evanoff said “we developed a
program called the ‘Greening of Yellowstone’. That program is
still alive and well today. Back in 1997 we identified a whole list of
initiatives we wanted to undertake in all the major categories—
transportation, energy, waste and education. A lot of those
projects have been completed, a lot are still in the planning
stages, but we are very, very active in our sustainability program.”
“Instead of operating in a vacuum, we just love to see what
we do in the Park trickle out into the surrounding areas,” noted
Evanoff. “I’m the chairman of our sustainability committee and
we are looking at projects that could be applicable throughout
the ecosystem and not just in Yellowstone. So we are taking that
bigger view.”
Yellowstone Environmental Stewardship Initiative (YES!)
In 2008, the Park launched its “Yellowstone Environmental
Stewardship Initiative (YES!). Working with its fundraising partner,
the Yellowstone Park Foundation (www.ypf.org), they identified 26
projects where private support from individuals, foundations and
corporations can make a difference and accelerate progress.
According to the YPF, YES! “is a multi-year initiative and
action plan designed to achieve significant greening and
sustainability goals by 2016… (and) will further reduce its
ecological footprint, increase operational efficiencies and better
preserve Park resources for future generations.”
Yellowstone is part of the last big intact ecosystem left in
North America. “When you combine the all the National Forests
and the Grand Tetons, it comprises 10 million acres it has every big
intact species that was here in prehistoric times, which was not
true 15 years ago before we reintroduced the wolf,” said Evanoff.
That brings us back to the elk munching and relaxing on
the lawns outside Park HQ —and the power of public/private
partnerships.
watch slideshow
YES! Goals
By 2016 reduce
• Greenhouse gas emissions by 30%
• Fossil fuel consumption by18%
• Water consumption by 15%
• Electricity consumption by15%.
Plus divert 100% of solid waste
from landfills.
Learn how you can help. Contact
the Yellowstone Park Foundation at
Elk and Smart Sprinklers www.ypf.org.
In 1886 the US cavalry was
brought in to Mammoth Hot
Springs, then known as Fort Yellowstone, to control exploitation of
Yellowstone’s resources by the public. My interview with Evanoff
took place in one of those buildings constructed of all local
materials back in the 1890s. By the way, each building is still being
used today as either offices or employee housing.
“One thing that we didn’t like was that the cavalry planted 15
acres of Kentucky blue grass to keep the dust down,” said Evanoff.
“Now that Kentucky blue grass is a part of the National Historic
District and by law we have to maintain the integrity of that historic
district which means cutting, fertilizing maintaining that lawn so in
terms of the feeding frenzy for the elk who have no natural predator
here because the wolves won’t come in that close to the buildings.”
“Currently, we go through half a million gallons a night
watering this lawn. They run off a timer. The sprinklers come on at
10 at night and go off at 6 in the morning, whether it’s raining or
not,” said Evanoff.
“So, working with the Yellowstone Partnership Foundation,
we’ve partnered with Rain Bird, a leading manufacturer of
irrigation products. Rain Bird has proposed to install a ‘smart’
sprinkler system that will cut our water consumption by 70%
by using state-of-the-art controls to sense the moisture in the
ground and the humidity in the air or if there’s an oncoming
storm to decide how long the sprinkler should go on.”
Negotiations are moving ahead so that installation can begin
in the spring of 2010. This project, coupled with the Mammoth
Hot Springs hydro-power clean energy project (which recently
received $1.6 million in ARRA funding and the YPF is helping
secure the balance) will reduce water consumption by 16 million
gallons and save $125,000 annually.
Evanoff could not hide his enthusiasm describing the benefits
of the new irrigation and hydro-electric power upgrades. His
excitement only grew when the topics of snow, transportation,
trash and propane came up. n
The Greening of Government 21
 USCG Entry Courtyard & Interior Lobby

Greening Where It Is Urban:

DHS HQ in DC
By Jeff Erlichman, Public Sector Communications

22 The Greening of Government

At St. Elizabeths in Washington DC,
DHS is proving homeland security
can be Green, historic and secure.
T
he event was groundbreaking —literally.
On September 9, 2009, DHS and GSA leaders broke
ground on the new DHS consolidated headquarters at the
St Elizabeths Campus in Washington DC.
The first phase of the campus will be the new, energy-
efficient 1.18 million-square-foot Coast Guard headquarters
facility. It will receive a minimum of a Silver LEED certification
from the U.S. Green Building Council.
The building uses state-of-the-art efficiency technologies,
including green roofs and landscaped courtyards to capture
and reuse surface water runoff. It also uses innovative heating,
ventilation and air conditioning systems.
DHS needs in excess of 8 million square feet of space in the
DC area. GSA has developed a master plan to put 4 ½ million
square feet at St. Elizabeths. Currently DHS is housed in more
than 35 offices around the DC area and the consolidation is
expected to save taxpayers $163 million over the next 30 years
according to DHS.
The building of the DHS campus, in Washington DC, is the
largest building project since the building of the Pentagon after
World War II.
Sustaining a Historic Landmark
The groundbreaking is “the culmination of a lot of planning
and just plain hard work over the past five years,” exclaimed
Don Brathurst, Chief Administrative Officer at DHS in a recent
interview.
St. Elizabeths is a national landmark with historic and
architectural significance, not just in the buildings but also in
the setting. The hospital was founded by Dorothea Dix in the
mid 1850s and was instrumental changing the treatment of
psychiatric patients. Rather than locking them away never to see
the light of day again, her idea was to create an open interactive
campus where patients could walk and be in the fresh air and
work outside.
Dix’s vision became the jumping off point for designing the
watch video
Donald Bathurst on St. Elizabeths
St. Es Status Update
Bart Bush is Regional Commissioner for GSA’s Public
Buildings Service for the National Capital Region. During
a recent interview I asked him: “Where does the St Es
project stand right now?”
“We have awarded our construction contract. The
design is nearing a state that will go to the National
Capital Planning Commission in a couple of months. That
design requires NCPC approval so that we can begin
construction.
Demolition has begun already on the site for the
footprint of the Coast Guard facility which will be in
excess of a million square feet when it’s constructed,
so we’ve got a very aggressive plan here in terms of
demolition, soil erosion control on the site in preparation
for approval of our design for the Coast Guard facility
which should be presented to NCPC in January, 2010.”
DHS campus.
“We’ve got those types of features with the views, openness
and walking paths, that really starts our whole journey on
sustainability,” said Bathurst.
“We look at sustainability as not just the greening of the
operation, but adding to the quality of life for our employees,
which then adds to the productivity, which ultimately focuses
on their attainment of our mission, which is to protect the
homeland and the citizens of this great country.”
“We have this historic campus which really was designed
to be sustainable in 1850s parlance and under Section 106 of
the Historic Preservation Act, we are really required to do as
much as we can to retain the historic fabric and that includes
the walking nature of the campus and the like. So that is our
canvass, if you will. Now we have to overlay our pallet, if you will,
with that.”
The Greening of Government 23
 Existing buildings total around 900,000 square feet of
space, much of that is actually historic building. GSA’s plan will
actually retain about 96 to 98% of the historic square footage
of space that contributes to the national landmark status.
“St. Elizabeths gives us tremendous opportunity; there’s a
myriad of opportunities for sustainable development,” Bathurst
said.
“Those warehouses coming down, but not much of them is
going to leave the site. They are concrete brick and block and
they are being demolished right now. Everything that can be
recycled is being recycled to the extent that the walls and floors
and all the concrete that is associated with those buildings is
going to be crushed and kept on site and used for aggregate for
concrete and roads back in the development of the other new
buildings.”
Where New Construction and Historic Rehabilitation Meet
The St. Elizabeths DHS headquarters is the largest project
that GSA has ever undertaken says GSA’s Bart Bush.
In a recent interview, GSA’s Bart Bush made it clear that the St.
Elizabeths DHS headquarters is the largest project that GSA has
ever undertaken.
Bush is also confident that when all is said and done – in
the year 2018 – the project will “most certainly culminate in
the success that Homeland Security is looking for in terms of
a consolidated headquarters operation where they can create
one culture for their organization, as well as, equally important,
protect and defend our nation’s boarders by being together in
times of crisis.”
Here are more excerpts from the interview.
Jeff Erlichman: Public Sector Communications
Why was St. Elizabeth’s site chosen?
Bart Bush:
We looked at the minimum size needs for the DHS permanent
headquarters. Their housing needs are in excess of 8 million
square feet in the DC area, with the goal of reducing probably
close to 100 locations into somewhere between 7 and 10
locations in the DC area.
St Elizabeths provided us an opportunity to house a
Federal agency in DC. It is really the only federally owned
24 The Greening of Government
Going For Gold (LEED)
The Coast Guard building is nearing the 30% design phase. It
is then handed off to the contractor who finishes the design as
part of the construction process.
“This is so that we can move the whole process along a little
bit faster,” Bathurst said.
“But the initial design of the Coast Guard building is quite
incredible. Overall we’ve worked with GSA and GSA is aiming for a
LEED certification for the entire campus at the Silver level, which
is pretty significant for a large campus like that with so many
historic buildings. As we work on the design for the Coast Guard
building, it is actually trending towards Gold and we are pretty
sure that it by itself will probably end up with a Gold LEED rating.”
Bathurst described how the building design makes use of the
natural terrain and be built back into the hillside, so there will be a
site in the District large enough to accommodate DHS’s
headquarters campus which called for 4+ million square feet.
JE: What were some of your design concerns?
Bush: As an agency that manages a lot of historic property,
we wanted to be careful not to diminish the great qualities
that that site has. So, with the Coast Guard building location
for example, we looked at moving it further down the hill or
moving it more into the hill to take advantage of some of the
natural characteristics that you have when you to depress
a building and don’t have to cool it as much as you normally
might. So there was a lot of that work took place to try to best
understand how we might best place buildings around the
campus.
JE: Are you concerned with LEED certifications? Are they
standard operating procedure?
Bush: Silver LEED is the minimum standard for all GSA
modernization and new construction projects. For the Coast
Guard, we believe that attaining gold is a distinct possibility.
Obviously the LEED process is an ongoing effort through the
design, we are a little bit more than 30% designed now and as
you continue that effort you begin to do cost benefit analysis
work on many of the features that could help you attain a
tremendous amount of natural light to wash in on all floors that add
to energy conservation as well as wellness of employees and all.
The entire roof of the Coast Guard facility will be about 5
acres in size. It is going to reduce storm water run-off and create
an insulation factor that the building will take advantage of in
terms of being able to reduce energy usage.
“There’s a whole use of storm water management and water
conservation, energy efficient lighting,” said Bathurst.
“GSA, as part of their development plan with our urging, is
building a co-generation plant which will help support taking
some load off the grid, allow us to help support the community
as necessary, but also allow us to have an ongoing reliable
source of power; again, to protect our mission.”
That’s going to have the potential to reduce our energy
consumption by upwards of 20%.
higher LEED rating. So we will meet our standard of silver
LEED rating and believe that we may be a few points from a
gold rating. We are seeking triple-platinum LEED.
JE: Is sustainability one of your primary objectives in the
ongoing development of the site?
Bush: Clearly; not only in long term sustainability but in the
upfront portion. It starts with how we recycle product already
on site if we were demolishing a warehouse and what we were
doing with that concrete; and then it goes to the retention
of many of the historic buildings, being able to protect
those buildings so we can use them in the long term plan for
Homeland Security.
JE: Are you going to recycle as many of the materials from the
demolition to reuse somewhere else on site?
Bush: Sure. A lot of that concrete gets ground up, gets used in
the road infrastructure on the site. A lot of the soils get retained
and reused. The biggest recycling portion of that project though
is the restoration of the historic buildings. We are retaining
upwards of 98% of the rentable square footage, or the square
footage of the existing historic buildings and they are going to
be used again.
That really is the ultimate sustainability. Not only do we
think about today as we build the Coast Guard facility, its
sustainability over the next 30 to 50 years.
JE: What plans to you have for historic rehabilitation of
buildings?
Bush: We are looking at buildings that are double that age and
how we are putting them back into productive use. We obviously
are cognizant of the historic features, mostly exterior features
Build Public/Public Partnerships
Bathurst stressed that what DHS is doing to be Green shouldn’t
be out of the ordinary; it’s just the right way to do business.
And he offered this advice to others who are undertaking Green
projects.
“The first thing is you’ve got to have a plan and vision. You’ve
got to know what you are trying to achieve. It doesn’t have to be
perfect but you’ve got to know what you are trying to achieve.”
And of course, you have to have the money.
“Then you have to communicate. You have to communicate
within the organization so people know what to expect and
what their responsibilities are; you have to communicate to the
community, again so they know what to expect and how they can
help; and then certainly you have to communicate with all the
various stakeholders.”n
of those buildings and we work very closely with our consulting
parties with respect to the design of those buildings.
When you begin thinking about interior corridors and offices,
you have to think about the modernization of that space so that
it is actually functional.
Then there’s a level of creativity that comes into play as you
look at buildings in terms of what type of use they might provide
for DHS into the future and we’ve pegged a number buildings to
be what you might think of as common use space, whether they
be auditoriums, dining halls, conferencing rooms, conferencing
centers where the layout just isn’t going to work for today’s
office environment but their location on the campus might make
a lot of sense as a place where people can, via the sidewalk
network, make their way over to a dining hall or to a conference
center or a fitness center to take advantage of that.
JE: So with the rehabilitation of the buildings and the beginning
construction of the Coast Guard headquarters, you are really
talking about an effort that’s going to be taking place for a
number of years.
Bush: Absolutely! We have an 8 or 9 year time horizon on the
project. That takes us well into nearing 2018 or thereabouts. It
will be ongoing substantial completion deadlines for a variety of
the phases.
We have both a great opportunity and challenge here at St.
Elizabeths with new construction and historic rehabilitation that
allow us to use our green standards, our expertise in this area
and really challenge us. But at the same time I think we are going
to produce a great product for the Department of Homeland
Security.
The Greening of Government 25
Resources
Visit www.greengovernment.us.com for updates!

WEBSITES
Green Grid Consortium www.thegreengrid.org
The US Green Building Council www.usgbc.org
EPA www.epa.gov
GSA www.gsa.gov/green
Dept. of Energy www.energy.gov
Dept. of Interior www.doi.gov
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission www.ferc.gov/default.asp
GSA Advantage www.gsaadvantage.gov
Government Energy www.govenergy.gov
Acquistion Service Directorate www.aqd.nbc.gov/Policies/buygreen.asp
Power IT Down Day government.hp.com/poweritdown.asp
Green Electronics Council www.greenelectronicscouncil.org
Energy Star www.energystar.gov
Federal Energy Management Program www.eere.energy.gov/femp
High Performance Buildings www.fedcenter.gov/programs/greenbuildings
GSA-High Performance Green Buildings www.gsa.gov/highperformance
DHS Headquarters – St. Elizabeths West Campus www.stelizabethswestcampus.com/
Telework www.telework.gov
www.teleworkexchange.com
EPEAT – Green Electronics Made Easy www.epeat.net
Federal Electronics Challenge www.federalelectronicschallenge.net
Yellowstone www.nps.gov/yell
Xanterra www.xanterra.com
Yellowstone Park Foundation www.ypf.org
Smart Grid:
NIST www.nist.gov/smartgrid
Energy www.oe.energy.gov/smartgrid_taskforce.htm

EVENTS & CONFERENCES

Greenbuild International Expo-Nov. 2009 www.greenbuildexpo.org
Green Energy Summit-2009 www.greenenergysummit.com
Green Power Conferences www.greenpowerconferences.com
Fortune Brainstorm Green -April 2010 www.timeinc.net/fortune/conferences
brainstormgreen/green_home.html
Opportunity Green-Nov. 2009 www.opportunitygreen.com
GridWeek2009 www.gridweek.com

26 The Greening of Government

 Resources presented by

RESEARCH-WHITE PAPERS & SPECIAL REPORTS

A How To Guide for Greening IT In Government (Symantec)
Going Green with Data Management Solutions (Commvault)
Blueprint for ReducingEnergyintheDataCenter (HP)
The GreenDataCenter Study (Symantec)
Report-Go Green Power PC
DoD Procurement Strategy
Greening Federal Facilities-(DOE)
Quick Start Guide to Data Center Efficiency (DOE)
Framework for Smart Grid Interoperability (NIST)
Green Procurement (AQD)
2009 Report To Congress: Status of Telework in the Federal Government (OPM)
Federal Leadership In High Performance And Sustainable Buildings Memorandum Of Understanding
Executive Order 13514 (White House Press Release, October 5, 2009)
Executive Order 13514 Analysis
Energy Efficiency for Network Equipment: Two Steps Beyond Greenwashing (Juniper Networks)

VIDEOS & AUDIO PRESENTATIONS

Future Vision Videos Tom Simmons—Citrix Bill Kosik—HP

from FEF Programs

Kevin Kampschroer—GSA John Frey—HP Bob Dix—Juniper

Networks

The Greening of Government 27

 Follow Our Example
Y
ou could say they “practice what they preach”. At
facilities all over the nation, IT companies are Greening
their own operations and in the process building a body
of knowledge they can share with their government partners.
At a recent Greening of Government Roundtable (conducted
by conference call so that no one would have to travel), those on
the frontlines at Citrix, HP, Juniper and Symantec talked about
their own organization’s Greening programs and how they can
take what they have learned and share it with you.
“Power Down Day” A Success
Rue Moody of Citrix described how Citrix along with HP, Intel and
Microsoft sponsored the August 27 Power Down Day. The goal
was to raise awareness of how much power is wasted when you
don’t turn off your computer at night.
Moody said that each computer turned off would save 13
kilowatt hours. 5,600 participated and it resulted in a savings of
72,800 kilowatt hours. That’s $73,000 in savings. You multiply
that across a working year, that’s over $2.6 million that could
be saved in energy costs. And that’s only for 5,600 employees.
There are 1.8 million civilian staffers. Do the math.
Let’s hope more take part next year. Even better, you can
start right now by making sure your computer is turned off when
you are not in the office.
Having your PC turned off when not at your desk highlights
28 The Greening of Government
Many in Industry are Greening
themselves because it is not only
good for the environment,
it’s good for business.
that fact that if you are
not at the office,
but still working,
then the computer
is not turned on at all.
Telework makes it possible to
keep productivity up, while reducing energy
costs.
Moody added that Citrix’s Greening efforts include
utilizing telework. Workers are teleworking at least 2 of the 5
week days and thus directly reducing greenhouse gases.
Citrix is one of the key government suppliers of data center,
desktop and remote access virtualization technologies that
provide a concrete way to reduce energy use in the data center
and on the desktop.
“Internally, we use our whole virtualization strategy and
server consolidation strategy that we promote as products
to the outside world,” said Moody. “So we are reducing the
amount of equipment in our IT systems internally. That reduces
power consumption somewhere in the 60% savings between
our virtualization, our server consolidation and our NetScaler
products that sit in front of those servers.”
IT: Part of Problem, Part of Solution
“2% is basically the carbon footprint for IT (plus another 2%
to produce the IT), equivalent to the airline industry,” said HP’s
John Sindelar. “But the thing that’s probably most important is,
you can affect the other 98% with that 2%.”
Sindelar stressed that you can actually optimize your
business processes by using IT to move to a Greener, more
sustainable, less energy consuming operation.
“IT is part of the problem but it’s also part of the solution,”
noted Sindelar. He pointed out that the difference IT has from
other industries is “while the data center is one of the biggest
consumers of electricity, energy efficiencies have almost an
immediate impact that you can measure—particularly if you
perform energy assessments and benchmarking ahead of time.”
 Sindelar explained that part of what HP’s energy reduction
strategy is to design efficiencies in to data center components
and the data center itself. “Our dynamic smart cooling is
actually from chip to chiller, where we build it into the design to
reduce the energy consumption. We can get anywhere from 33
to 40% to energy savings through that design work.
Moreover Sindelar said “IT is on a life cycle of 3 to 5 years,
so greening your investment doesn’t take decades to take
hold.”
At HP they are already reaping the benefits of optimizing
their business processes. They have reduced their greenhouse
gas and increased their energy efficiency by 25% below their
2005 levels and they did that a year ahead of schedule. Not
content with that success, Sindelar said HP set new goals to
reduce the greenhouse gas and energy consumption by 40% in
absolute numbers by 2011.
HP is Greening all of its lines of business including developing
an eco-system which includes greening the supply chain that
includes 600 suppliers and also focusing later on the tier 2
suppliers.
Software Is A Key Green Ingredient
At Symantec, the CEO challenged the organization to a 15%
carbon footprint reduction based on 2008 consumption by 2012.
Jose Iglesias said that as a software development company,
Symantec has “only three levers to play: the people, building,
and IT. We implemented all our energy saving technologies
inside our own IT environment and we were able to demonstrate
that by doing that IT was able to get us, along with some of
the building facilities’ efforts, 8% of the 15% that our CEO has
signed us up for. By the way that netted us $ 1 million a year
of electricity savings by being able to reduce the amount of
hardware we used.”
Internally, Symantec has staff that is focused on Green and
has set up Green teams focused on Greening at sites worldwide.
Jose Iglesias said “as an example we have about 17,000
employees and our Green newsletter had about 10,000 hits
internally during the first two days it was out.”
Symantec views software is part of the solution because
software is an enabler for Green, leading to better usage of
power and increasing data center efficiency. “We even have
a campaign about stop buying storage—and we sell storage—
because our focus is on how do you manage it more efficiently
and leverage that.”
Plus to help consumers, Symantec has built a return on
investment (ROI) tool where for free, they will help you evaluate
what steps you could take and how much those steps will yield in
savings.
Gone Green
Juniper Networks has also ‘gone Green’ in its business practices,
particularly through its promotion of telework among its
employees.
“As a networking solutions provider, we’re clearly in favor
of telecommuting—we enable it with our SSL VPN and network
access control solutions, and encourage our employees to
practice what we preach,” Juniper’s Tim LeMaster said.
LeMaster noted that “more than 90% of Juniper’s workforce
telecommutes for at least a portion of their time—and 10% are
telecommuting on any given day.”
In addition to offering mass transit incentives, as a
member of the Waste Reduction Awards Program, Juniper
has committed to become a ‘zero waste’ company, currently
diverting from landfills about 70% of its office byproducts—
paper, cups, cans, bottles, batteries, and other items.
Juniper’s commitment to sustainability is also reflected in its
participation in a variety of ‘green’ initiatives.
Juniper is also one of the growing numbers of government
partners that is focused on energy and climate issues in their
product design and business practices.
“We recognized that our customers not only needed to
increase the performance of their information networks and
data centers, but also needed to reduce their energy and
space requirements. This has helped us to design energy and
space efficiency into our routers, switches, firewalls, and other
networking solutions—from the network core to its edge, Juniper
solutions consume far less energy and require much less rack
and floor space than our competitors.
LeMaster said that Juniper is now bringing to market a
significantly simplified data center architecture that consolidates
routing, switching, firewalls, intrusion detection and network
access solutions onto a single plane, or ‘fabric,’ requiring much
less power, space, and maintenance.
“This ‘single-fabric’ data center can save up to 53% in
capital expenditures, 44% in power and 55% in rack space—and
greatly simplify data center operations and maintenance,” said
LeMaster.n —Jeff Erlichman
Learn more how these IT providers can help you “Go Green.”
www.citrix.com
www.hp.com
www.juniper.net
www.symantec.com
The Greening of Government 29
Greening Via Virtualization
Go Green, boost performance and spend less in the process
with virtualization technologies.

I
n recent years, skyrocketing energy costs and a universalVirtualization for a Greener Desktop
dependence on information technology (IT)—which requires Desktops draw a considerable amount of power on their own,
more and more energy to sustain—have highlighted the needeven in sleep or standby mode, with the more powerful machines
consuming the most energy. When scaled to thousands of
for Green initiatives. Potential energy savings and the resulting
positive impact on the bottom line make Green IT even more agency users, the desktop energy drain and its resulting power
bill become critical.
attractive for government. And initiatives from the current White
House administration make it clear that Green IT in government The cradle-to-grave environmental impact of these
is here to stay. devices poses another Green concern, particularly in terms of
replacement and disposal of obsolete machines. Desktops—some
Virtualization technologies, which can improve government’s
carbon footprint from the of which yield only a two-year
datacenter to the desktop, present life span under traditional use—
a cost-saving, performance- contain hazardous materials,
boosting answer to government’s such as lead, cadmium and
Green IT needs. mercury, and require special (and
expensive) handling for disposal.
Virtualization for a Desktop virtualization
Greener Datacenter
The move toward IT centralization
I
n the end, the goal of Green technologies
power needed
reduce the computing
and provide broader
IT is simple: to leave behind
has created an undeniable a better environment than options when purchasing new end
power surge in the datacenter. the one we inherited. Today, devices. Virtualization enables
The Environmental Protection virtualization stands as the management of the desktop as
Agency estimates that energy government solution of choice a “golden image” stored in the
consumption of federal servers for going Green without datacenter and securely delivered
and datacenters costs taxpayers compromising performance. to the end device over the network
approximately $450 million each or the Internet. Low-power
year. Some estimates assert alternatives, including thin clients,
that, for every kilowatt of energy can also be deployed at a much
consumed by a server, roughly lower cost while the end-user
another kilowatt is used to cool experience remains speedy and
that same server. robust. End devices last longer,
The key to carbon footprint and even older, outdated desktops
reduction in the government can be re-deployed as thin clients—
datacenter lies in reducing the further extending the lifecycle of
number of physical servers—thus cutting the energy needed expensive equipment from two to up to five years.
to power and cool the datacenter—and optimizing server
utilization. Green IT: Real solutions for the real world
By separating the physical from the logical, virtualization In the end, the goal of Green IT is simple: to leave behind a better
frees computing resources from their previous hard-coded environment than the one we inherited. Today, virtualization
linkages. Server virtualization enables one physical server to stands as the government solution of choice for going Green
process multiple virtual servers, with each handling different without compromising performance.
applications, if needed. Server utilization rates increase, while Simply put, virtualization gives government the opportunity
the datacenter runs far fewer servers. This dramatically reduces to experience the possibilities of Green IT and its universal
the power needed to operate, cool and maintain equipment by benefits. n
as much as 75%, while datacenter efficiency increases as much Thanks to Tom Simmons, Citrix Systems, Inc. for his assistance with
as ten times over. this article.

30 The Greening of Government

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Going Green Makes A Lot Of “$ense”

By Jim Flyzik, The Flyzik Group valuable time and travel money when the face-to-face meeting

E
nergy conservation and environmental issues are can be accomplished via video conferencing?
not new. Growing up, I constantly heard “close the Telework can be used to raise productivity, reduce carbon
refrigerator door”; “turn off the lights”; “save the grocery emissions, and save great deals of time and money. Now that I
bags for other uses” and many other energy and environment- am no longer in government and focus on maximizing the value
friendly phrases. my time can provide clients, it is clear to me that I can get far
I remember a Professor of Biology in college in the 70’s more work done at my home office in front of the computer
urging students to get involved with energy conservation and and using teleconferences whenever possible. Travel time
environmental conservation before we face major problems in spent in cars really offers little productive value—and with the
the future. It just seems that all of a sudden “Going Green” has safety concerns of texting while driving, working from home or
taken on a higher level priority and telework locations really is a good
sense of urgency. idea for many reasons.
But when you think about it—it The business cases for “Going
really is a “no-brainer” since there Green” initiatives are not difficult
really are very little downsides to
the so called “Green” initiatives.
U sing information technology to justify. So then, why haven’t
we done these things already?
to reap the advantages of
Corporate Executives are It is not the technology or the
“Going Green” requires
concerned about generating money—it is the “culture issue”
changing behaviors and the
revenues, lowering costs and that has remained in the way of
ways we have been doing things
maximizing shareholder wealth. progress.
in the past.
Government Executives are Using information technology
concerned about stewardship to reap the advantages of
of the taxpayer’s money and “Going Green” requires changing
eliminating unnecessary expenses. behaviors and the ways we have
Initiatives geared at energy been doing things in the past.
savings and environment improvements are all supportive of It means giving up some of the silos and sharing data centers
these directions. Save energy—reduce costs. Use hybrid vehicles with other component agencies. It means integrating disparate
and reduce carbon emissions—reduce travel costs. operating systems on servers. It means running open source
Information Technology is a great enabler of Going Green. solutions and hybrid environments versus pure proprietary
Virtualization, Telework, Data Center Consolidations, Video solutions. It means moving persistent data from primary data
Teleconferencing, Cloud Computing and Passive Optical Fiber storage to lower cost, higher density platforms that reduce
Networks are but a few initiatives that immediately come to power consumption and save space.
mind that can have major energy and cost savings. It also requires new levels of trust—trust that telework
Consolidating storage requirements, not just servers, makes can be a better way of doing business. Trust that data can be
good business sense. Studies show about 80% of data stored in secured in the “cloud”. Trust that a public/private partnership
data centers are read once and stored for long periods of time. can get better results. I always said that if you want trustworthy
Move that data from high energy use primary storage devices employees and contractors, the first thing you need to do is
to lower cost on-line idle disks and reduce power and space trust them!
requirements—and save money. As younger generations move into the workplace, “Going
Video Teleconferencing Technology has come a long way Green” will no longer be an initiative—it will be a standard
with high-speed converged technology. The technology is so operating principle. Now that I completed this article from my
good that it almost appears that individuals far, far away are home office, I need to do a few teleconference calls to meet
in the same room with the local participants. We are almost information requests, and then turn off the lights and power
at a “beam me up Scotty” technology realization. Why spend down my computer. n
32 The Greening of Government
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