Sustainability and environmental management

Federal customer agencies can count on GSA to provide first class workplaces at a good value to the American taxpayer, while ensuring environmental stewardship and achieving sustainability. The head of each federal agency is responsible for ensuring that all necessary actions are taken to integrate environmental accountability into agency day-to-day decision making and long-term planning.

The purpose of this website is to inform our clients, federal agencies and interested organizations on how GSA accomplishes this stewardship. The Rocky Mountain Region employs the concepts of sustainability into its business process through:

• Environmental protection: Reducing and mitigating environmental risks and pollution.
• Business performance: Operating more efficiently and reducing costs.
• Community involvement: Improving employee and public awareness of environmental responsibility.

Sustainability is an economic, social, and environmental concept. It is intended to be a means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society and its members are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving natural ecosystems for the future. The Rocky Mountain region is carrying out this concept through the framework of an Environmental Management System (EMS). EMS is a set of processes and practices that enables an organization to reduce its environmental impacts and increase its operating efficiency.

An EMS is built around identifying, prioritizing, controlling, and improving those elements of an organization that interact with the environment. This is achieved by developing procedures to reduce the impact an organization’s activities, products, or services have on the environment.

The audience for EMS and Sustainability & Environmental Management System (SEMS) includes these stakeholders:

• GSA tenants and the general public – researching best practices and lessons learned for their facilities, and identifying areas of collaboration and mutual benefit in improving environmental performance and reducing operating costs.
• GSA building managers – seeking EMS policies, programs, and procedures that apply to their areas of responsibility.
• GSA contractors – checking for information regarding EMS and its procedures.

To aid in this endeavor, environmental procedures have been prepared to assist in day-to-day operations, and Service and Repair and Alteration (R&A) contractual matters. A matrix is posted below. The procedures are found on the accompanying pages.

Procedures and forms

If there are questions or concerns about the Sustainability and Environmental Management Program, please contact:

• Niki Townsend: nichole.townsend@gsa.gov or 303-236-7302