NNSA is building for sustainability and net-zero emissions

NNSA is designing and constructing sustainable federal buildings, adding renewable energy to the grid, and striving to achieve net-zero emissions across our building portfolio.

As NNSA moves forward with extensive infrastructure modernization to deliver on vital national security missions, we are creating facilities to meet Executive Order 14057: Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability. NNSA is working across its federal portfolio of owned and leased buildings to increase energy and water efficiency, reduce waste, drive decarbonization, and achieve net-zero emissions buildings by 2045.

NNSA’s path ahead requires all new federal new construction and modernization projects over 25,000 gross square feet (GSF) to meet the Council on Environmental Quality’s 2020 Guiding Principles for Sustainable Federal Buildings and related agency requirements to design for net-zero emissions by 2030, and where feasible, net-zero water and waste. All new buildings less than 25,000 GSF are to strive to achieve net-zero emissions and the Guiding Principles. In addition, all NNSA capital asset projects must be designed to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification, unless they receive a waiver from the Project Management Executive.   

Here are a few of NNSA’s sustainable building highlights: 

• The John A. Gordon Albuquerque Complex, a 330,000 GSF office building, is a newLEED Platinum-certified facility, the first for NNSA.  “Platinum” is the highest LEED level. 
• NNSA has two net-zero energy buildings at the Nevada National Security Site: a fire station and an administrative facility. 
• The new Nevada Site Operations Center, housing both the Emergency Operations Center and Operations Command Center, is an all-electric 14,000 GSF building. In November 2023, the building received a third-party Guiding Principles Assessment of Compliance from the Green Business Certification Inc. 

• The Sandia National Laboratories Power Sources Capability facility is under design and plans to achieve LEED Gold certification.  The 135,000 GSF facility will provide office space and production for the SNL mission. 
• At Los Alamos National Laboratory, the 19,000 GSF West Entry Control facility is currently under design and plans to achieve LEED Silver certification.
• NNSA sites are also beginning to conduct Guiding Principles reassessments of all existing sustainable buildings to verify ongoing sustainable building compliance and to identify opportunities to improve building performance and reduce greenhouse gas scope 1 emissions. 
• To increase sustainability capacity, NNSA’s Enterprise Sustainability Division has been training NNSA Headquarters and site staff on sustainable and net-zero building emissions goals, requirements, and technologies. 

NNSA is integrating green building requirements into modernization of the enterprise, designing its buildings to be sustainable, healthy, resilient, and efficient, and investing in a sustainable net-zero future.