Sustainable communities approach improves future AF bases' environmental impact

  • Published
  • By Eric M. Grill
  • AFCEE Public Affairs
JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas --  With the goal of making the most effective use of limited resources and reducing fossil fuel use while increasing the use of alternative fuels, the Air Force is moving forward with plans to implement the sustainable communities approach and improve the Air Force's infrastructure.

The Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment is leading a tri-service, installation-based approach to evaluating and improving enterprise-wide sustainability and creating compact, sustainable communities that still meet security and safety requirements.

Sustainable communities is a project funded through the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program, a Department of Defense-level research program that leads to "lasting" development - meeting present mission requirements without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

Partnered with the Army and the Navy, along with the Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Green Building Council, the Air Force uses the management-system approach that enables sustainable communities to measure continuous improvement toward long-term strategic goals.

"Implementing sustainable communities by combining requirements under a single management-system framework helps installation leadership use a holistic approach to minimize duplication of effort and reduce data collection requirements, while also facilitating compliance with multiple federal sustainability mandates," said Eldon Hix, AFCEE Technical Support Division chief.

Those requirements include goals for water; greenhouse gas management and reduction; energy conservation and renewable energy; sustainable procurement and contracting; storm-water management; high performance and sustainable buildings; materials and waste management; fuels; environmental management systems; and sustainable planning.

This methodology, Hix said, provides maximum flexibility by allowing installation leaders to choose from a menu of implementation strategies and pick the optimal solution for their installation. All installations will have the benefit of viewing the same best practices, but will have freedom to choose the strategies that suit them best.

"As senior military leaders establish strategic environmental goals, it is imperative installations are provided operational and tactical level guidance to achieve those goals," Hix said. "Sustainable communities provide the operational and tactical level guidance, while still providing each service's leaders with a mechanism to track progress towards strategic goals, as well as strategically allocate resources based on installation capacity."

The fundamental concepts providing the foundation for the sustainable communities rating system emerged at a 2007 meeting between representatives of multiple federal agencies and the U.S. Green Building Council, said Chris Kruzel, AFCEE Technical Support Division mechanical engineer.

The meeting resulted in consensus among participants on the need for a streamlined approach to meet the evolving and growing list of federal sustainability mandates, he said.

The group identified six key elements of a successful evaluation tool:

- A collaborative development process that builds upon existing systems
- A focus at the installation level
- Use of Environmental Management Systems to ensure continuous improvement
- Alignment with asset management principles, including levels of service
- Maximizing use of existing data already collected by an installation
- Streamlined reporting

The result of this effort was development of the Sustainable Communities Rating System, which uses a combination of requirements and credits to evaluate the sustainability of an entire installation systematically, rather than by individual buildings and facilities, Kruzel said. This system is similar to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, model.

The sustainable communities' requirements show compliance with the federal sustainability mandates, and credits provide the opportunity to demonstrate best practices that result in a more sustainable installation. Sustainable communities offer installation commanders with a simple scorecard that clearly presents their compliance status and overall installation sustainability score.

"Success is measured through continuous improvement by demonstrating percent improvement over time from an installation's baseline score," Kruzel said.

The Army, Navy and Air Force face the same federal requirements, and must approach them in similar fashions, Kruzel said. For this reason, the three services agreed to collaborate on a way to streamline reporting requirements, enable enterprise acquisition, and address sustainability from a holistic installation perspective.

"Sustainable communities will have the flexibility to allow installations to provide additional implementation strategies or write their own credits or requirements using the standardized framework," Kruzel said. "This allows installations to receive credit for all the great work they're already doing."

Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Ohio will be the first Air Force installation to start the transition into a sustainable community.

"Youngstown is taking a major step forward in aggressively tackling installation-wide sustainability goals as well as aligning multiple existing efforts toward a common vision for the installation," Kruzel said.

Building on a best practice AFCEE engineers picked up from site visits with the Army, specifically at Fort Carson, Colo., Youngtown's plan is to build a sustainable community by 2030. Partnering with the local community and set to launch Oct. 1, the project directly links strategic goals of the Air Force with the ability to achieve those goals locally.

"So many of the principles of sustainability go beyond the fence line and impact the local community," Kruzel said. "It is only appropriate to partner with the local community to truly build a sustainable community."