In Short : Old U.S. government buildings are finding new purpose in the fight against climate change. Repurposing these structures for green initiatives, such as solar panel installations, energy-efficient upgrades, and sustainable infrastructure, is helping reduce carbon emissions. This innovative approach not only preserves historical buildings but also aligns with the country’s commitment to combating climate change. By transforming these spaces into eco-friendly hubs, the U.S. government is setting an example for sustainable urban development and environmental responsibility.
In Detail :
DENVER — Robin Carnahan cruised a Ford F-150 pickup truck through a seemingly endless maze of federal buildings.
To an untrained eye, the dozens of buildings in the Denver Federal Center looked unremarkable, even drab. But Carnahan, who leads the General Services Administration, could spot how each structure was a secret weapon in the fight against climate change.
“Isn’t this cool?” Carnahan exclaimed to her spokeswoman in the back seat and a reporter in the passenger seat, pointing at the windows in Building 40 as they sparkled in the midday sun.
These weren’t just any windows, she said. They were designed to block summer heat and retain winter warmth — technology that could save the government hundreds of millions of dollars on heating and cooling costs in the coming decades.
Building 48, once a World War II munitions plant, was on track to reach net-zero emissions. Buildings 20, 25 and 53 had parking lots covered with solar panels and dotted with electric vehicle charging stations, where Carnahan’s borrowed F-150 electric truck would recharge later that August afternoon. Past yet another row of buildings, a sprawling field of solar panels would soon produce up to three-quarters of the energy needed for the entire center, home to the largest collection of federal agencies outside the nation’s capital.
Carnahan, 62, isn’t a household name, nor is the agency she leads. But she’s a central player in President Biden’s push to leverage Washington’s purchasing power to combat climate change — a push that could ripple across the economy and outlast the president’s time in the White House.
Biden in 2021 signed an executive order directing the government to become carbon-neutral by 2050, with federal buildings to meet this target by 2045. The GSA — one of the country’s largest landlords and biggest buyers of materials such as steel and concrete — is racing to remake its real estate portfolio, from Denver to D.C. The agency’s actions could have a significant climate impact, since burning fossil fuels to heat and cool buildings produces nearly a third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. They could also drive up demand for green technologies, encouraging the private sector to follow suit.
“There’s not a lot of entities that can really move markets. But the federal government is one,” said Ben Evans, federal legislative director at the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council.
The GSA’s work is not particularly glamorous. It involves traveling deep into the bowels of buildings to replace hulking, aging machinery with climate-friendly alternatives. In many cases, it entails replacing old gas furnaces with new electric heat pumps, or incandescent lightbulbs with energy-saving LED versions.
The scale of these efforts is enormous. The GSA manages nearly 8,400 buildings and spends more than $630 billion annually on goods and services. Using nearly $1 billion from Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the agency is retrofitting more than 100 federal facilities to become all-electric or net-zero emissions.
“To me, this is just an incredible opportunity for the government to lead by example,” Carnahan said in an interview after the driving tour of the Denver Federal Center. “Think about it: Where do emissions come from? Buildings, cars, power production, manufacturing. And we touch a whole bunch of those things.”
In 2021, Biden tapped Carnahan, a longtime public servant from a prominent political family, to be the public face of this push. The daughter of a former senator and Missouri governor, Carnahan herself served as Missouri secretary of state from 2005 to 2013 and ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2010.
She sees her agency’s actions as one of the most durable planks of Biden’s climate agenda. A future Republican president might undo the Democrat’s environmental regulations, she reasons, but they probably wouldn’t rip out energy-efficient appliances from federal buildings — especially if those appliances were saving taxpayers money.
“As long as things make economic sense, they’ll keep happening,” Carnahan said.
A new project underway at the Denver Federal Center promises significant cost savings. The $88 million project with Ameresco, a renewable energy company, involves the installation of heat pumps and solar panels, as well as heating and cooling system upgrades, at 18 buildings across the complex. It’s projected to save more than $2 million annually on energy costs while reducing carbon emissions by more than 29,000 metric tons annually — the equivalent of taking nearly 6,500 cars off the nation’s roads each year.
‘A big transition’
About a half-hour drive from the Denver Federal Center, the GSA’s efforts are already helping one sustainable supplier take off.
Alpen High Performance Products, a window manufacturer based in Louisville, Colo., last year completed the GSA’s Green Proving Ground program, which evaluates innovative building technologies for use in federal facilities. The goal is to drive down the costs of these technologies so they can be more widely used across the country.
Recent work has pushed Alpen toward that goal, company executives told Carnahan when she visited in August.
“The association with the Green Proving Ground has provided a lot of credibility,” Alpen chief executive Brad Begin said. “It’s a badge of honor. And we’ve never seen the market move with as much momentum as it has.”
Since the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, the company has more than doubled its workforce — growth it attributes in part to working with the Green Proving Ground, which tested the company’s signature quad-pane windows in 2021. In a typical commercial building, about a third of heating and cooling goes out the window. Alpen’s quad-pane windows, which consist of four panes in an insulated fiberglass frame, save 24 percent more energy on average than conventional double-pane windows, the testing found. In fact, they save so much energy that the research found they pay for themselves within an average of 22 months.
The company’s windows are now used in many more places than Building 40 at the Denver Federal Center. They include college campuses, museums, affordable housing units, McDonalds’ PlayPlaces and the Empire State Building.
In Houston, the windows were installed in a federal building before a damaging deep freeze plagued the state in February 2021, killing at least 246 people and leaving more than 13 million residents under boil-water advisories. The building was able to maintain a comfortable temperature, and none of its pipes froze.
By demonstrating that these windows and other technologies work, the GSA has given the private sector more confidence to adopt them, said Victor Olgyay, a principal architect at the energy-focused think tank RMI.
“The private sector in general is a little risk-averse,” Olgyay said. “So having the GSA pilot these technologies is definitely de-risking them for the larger real estate community.”
During her visit to Alpen in August, Carnahan took a tour of the manufacturing facility, where workers in hard hats bent over whirring machinery. After the tour, dozens of employees gathered to hear her deliver a short speech. An interpreter also repeated each line in Spanish.
“We’re going through a big transition, not just in the United States, but around the world, in how we use energy and how that impacts the climate,” Carnahan said.