The Value of Green to the Army

Abstract : Over the past few years, the U.S. Army has planned, designed, and built many new facilities were using the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating tool as a guide and measurement. There is now a need to determine whether this change in business practice has actually resulted in better buildings, buildings of greater value to the Army. This work was undertaken to begin to determine the value of "green" to the Army by developing a valid, reliable, and meaningful method to compare "pre-green" buildings to recent "green" buildings. This work began to establish the metrics that can be used to compare facilities in a meaningful way; to determine whether the Army is getting a good return on the investment of time and money spent to build sustainable, green buildings; to measure whether the outcome is improving over time; and ultimately, to describe a potential method for assessing the value of "green" facilities to the Army, and the context in which that method will be applied.