The Foreign Service Journal, April 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2014 21 Today the State Department has more than 20 embassies and consulates around the world that have earned the coveted Leadership in Energy and Environ- mental Design, or LEED, certification. By reducing annual and longer-term costs and overall environ- mental impact through reduced GHG emissions, these facilities model eco-diplomacy and showcase U.S. leadership in green best practices and technology around the world. The Policy Foundation In 2000 OBO’s “green team” consisted of a couple of extremely dedicated professional staff within the Office of Design and Engineering. Over time, best practice became policy.This process began with a charrette, a collaborative session in which the full project design teambrainstorms solutions to a design problem. Design teams for the new embassies in Sofia, Yerevan and Abidjan studied those projects’ environ- mental contexts, including climate, site characteristics and program requirements, as well as appropriate architectural and engineering responses. The charrette was instrumental in defining oppor- tunities and constraints in each location. In Sofia, the project team designated an area for tree preservation, which earned a Design Innovation point in the LEED green building rating system and helped the project become the very first LEED-certified U.S. embassy and the first LEED-certified building in Bulgaria. In 2006, OBO signed a pledge with more than 20 other agen- cies, committing itself to “implementation of common strategies for planning, acquiring, siting, designing, building, operating and maintaining High Performance and Sustainable Buildings.” In 2007, the pledge was codified through Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy and Transportation Management. OBO’s Green Team then began to reach beyond the Office of Design and Engineering into areas of site selection, plan- ning and cost estimating, as well as construction, facilities, area management and even into other bureaus and offices. In 2009, after Pres. Obama signed EO 13514: Federal Leader- ship in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance, former Secretary of State Hillary RodhamClinton launched the Greening Diplomacy Initiative and formalized the existing ad hoc Green Team into the Greening Council. The council is chaired by Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy, who also serves as the department’s Senior Sustainability Officer, a required position in every agency. This policy commitment by management encouraged OBO to aggressively strive for higher levels of building performance and operational efficiency, thereby establishing the first pillar of eco- diplomacy. The Buildings Platform Since 1999, following the tragic U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, OBO’s mission and focus have been on providing safer, more secure facilities. Although security was the priority, OBO was an early adopter of LEED and most of the projects completed during this period used it as a tool. But it wasn’t until 2008 that LEED certification became a contract requirement. Today more than half of the projects in OBO’s pipeline are on target for LEED Gold, a notch above Silver, which has been the minimum contract requirement since 2009. And recently the U.S. Innovation Center in Helsinki earned Platinum, the highest award in the LEED green building rating system. It was the department’s first facility overseas to earn Platinum and an important milestone for eco-diplomacy. Eco-charrettes are now a formal part of OBO’s project develop- ment process. Such sessions deliver the greatest project perfor- mance benefits, because early planning decisions on how a site is organized, how buildings are formed and oriented, and what Embassy Managua will reduce energy purchased from the grid by 54 percent through an Energy Saving Performance Contract with Lockheed Martin to install a 1-MW photovoltaic array, replace interior and exterior lighting with LED illumination and improve the chiller equipment. Gil Fiallos