Press Release: Cal/EPA Secretary Hails Building’s Energy Efficiency

For Immediate Release (R5-2003)
November 13, 2003

Contact: James Spagnole, Cal/EPA
916-324-9670

Cal/EPA Secretary Winston Hickox hailed the awarding of the US Green Building Council’s (www.usgbc.org) top designation to Cal/EPA’s headquarters for energy efficiency and environmental responsibility in a high-rise. “Energy efficiency and environmental stewardship go hand in hand and they don’t happen by accident. This is a tribute to bold Cal/EPA leadership under multiple agency secretaries and administrations of both political parties. I trust this type of leadership will continue in the future.”

The Cal/EPA Headquarters building is the result of an unusual state-municipal-private sector partnership. Each has contributed to remarkable energy savings in the building. The 25-story high-rise is owned by the City of Sacramento and named for the late Mayor Joe Serna Jr. The building’s tenant is the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal/EPA). Thomas Properties Group, LLC manages the building.

“In the ‘90s, when the building was in the planning stages, my predecessors insisted that energy savings be built in, not just added on,” said Secretary Hickox. “I moved the various portions of the Agency into the building in late 2000, just before the electricity crisis peaked. We were able to save power on a massive scale because of innovative features including reliance on outside air, and daylight as well as super-efficient heating, ventilating and air-conditioning. The agency has insisted on and worked with our managers to institute additional savings such as reconfigured cleaning and lighting schedules. Our staff and the management company have each played its part in making the building an overwhelming success.

“As environmental leaders, we not only act responsibly, but show how a massive building can leave a smaller ‘environmental footprint’,” said Michael Paparian, a member of the Integrated Waste Management Board and Secretary Hickox’s designated point person for making management of the headquarters building as environmentally responsible as possible. “Cal/EPA is pioneering techniques that are being adopted in designs for new building and retrofits for old ones.” Paparian added, “We are also improving other environmental aspects, including encouraging the use of mass transit and bicycles, increasing recycling and buying environmentally friendly products. The Secretary’s vision and my ambition is that the national average eventually catches up to the high standards this building has set. Then the Cal/EPA headquarters will no longer be the most efficient in the country, but it will have led the way.”

NOTES: In addition to saving electricity, the building also produces enough to power 10 average homes through its rooftop solar array.

The building’s architect, David C. Martin (FAIA) of Los Angeles incorporated a variety of energy-efficient features into the design. These are explained in “The History of the California Environmental Protection Agency” at http://www.calepa.ca.gov/About/History01/building.htm

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