Sustainability in Practice at the Nation’s Capitol
For the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) sustainability - ensuring we are improving the future by the actions we take today - is something incorporated into our everyday thinking.
At the AOC, sustainable practices include, among others,improved energy and water efficiency, use of earth-friendly materials, promoting and practicing renewably, reuse, and recycling. From its very beginning in 1793, choices made in the design, construction, and maintenance of the U.S. Capitol and the surrounding facilities fit within many of the modern standards defining sustainable practices.
This work extends well beyond the Capitol. For example, the United States Botanic Garden (a jurisdiction of the AOC) is part of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, an interdisciplinary effort by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the United States Botanic Garden, to develop the first national guidelines and performance benchmarks for landscapes and gardens.
The AOC is working in many different areas - from the small, such as installing thousands of compact florescent lighting across the Capitol campus - to the big, such as the implementation of energy savings performance contracts – public/private partnerships – where a selected vendor invests money in energy savings projects and is repaid based on the verified energy savings. +Read More