with their local communities, strengthening those ties
and in some cases providing economic benefits to the
local area. These efforts are directly linked to national
security, as resource extraction is highly damaging to
the environment and resource availability is essential
to enabling the DOD to achieve its mission at home
and abroad.
Building Sustainably
As one of the nation’s largest landlords, the DOD
manages several hundred thousand buildings. Recog-
nizing these buildings are one of the greatest resource
consumers, the department implemented several poli-
cies to improve energy efficiency, reduce operating
costs, and reduce resource appetite (e.g. DOD Instruc-
tion 4170.11 and DOD Unified Facilities Criteria 4-030-
01). In 2010, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Installations and Environment, Dorothy Robyn, issued
a memorandum emphasizing key points from these
policies. Specifically, all new construction beginning
in fiscal year 2012 must meet the Silver designation of
the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) green building rating system – or an equiva-
lent set of standards. The Silver LEED standard will
also apply to renovation and repair where possible.
Additionally, the department will utilize life cycle and
cost/benefit analyses when making design decisions
for any construction. This last requirement is cru-
cial, as often short-term costs are affiliated with using
more sustainable products/materials, but may have
long-term benefits. There are also situations where a
product perceived to be more sustainable is actually
equally or more harmful than current products when
viewed over the entire life cycle. A life cycle assess-