Mission

The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Energy and Sustainability (ODASA (E&S)) provides strategic leadership, policy guidance, program oversight and outreach for energy and sustainability throughout the Army enterprise to enhance current installation and operational capabilities, safeguard resources and preserve future options.

Secure and reliable access to energy and water on Army installations is essential to the Total Army and its ability to deploy, fight, and win in a complex world. Resilient energy and water systems directly affect the success of the strategic support area in multi-domain operations. To reduce mission risk, the Army is prioritizing resilient energy and water supplies, facilities, and infrastructure that support critical missions. We are achieving this through large and small-scale energy and water projects that focus on resilience, efficiency, and affordability.

In compliance with Executive Order 13834, Efficient Federal Operations, the Army is working to increase efficiency, optimize performance, eliminate unnecessary use of resources, and protect the environment by reducing waste, cutting costs, enhancing infrastructure and operational resilience. Additionally, in support of the 2018 National Defense Strategy and Army Vision, Army Directive 2020-03, Installation Energy and Water Resilience Policy, establishes requirements for Army installations to reduce mission risk by prioritizing resilient energy and water supplies, facilities, and infrastructure that support critical missions. The Army will reduce risk to all other missions when it is life-cycle cost-effective. These initiatives enhance the Army’s adaptability to rapidly deploy, fight, and win whenever and wherever our national interests are threatened.

Army sustainability goals are to enhances mission effectiveness, reduce the Army’s environmental impact, comply with federal sustainable mandates, build green sustainable facilities and achieve levels of energy independence that enhance continuity of mission-essential operations. Army’s sustainability program builds on Army’s long standing energy efficiency, water efficiency and sustainable design practices with the goal of increasing resilience at our installations. Facilities will be modernized to sustainable 21st century building standards inclusive of automation, sensors, and the use of big data to improve efficiency and to protect against cyber, physical and natural threats. Sustainable operations across the Army enterprise are a critical enabler resulting in decreased future mission constraints and conservation of energy, water, material and land resources for future generations.

A 2018 Executive Order (E.O.), 13834 - Efficient Federal Operations, focuses federal sustainability policy and on existing statutory requirements, continuous improvement, and cost effectiveness. The Executive Order identifies sustainability goals in the following categories; energy, water, renewable energy, performance contracting, sustainable design principles, waste management, federal procurement, and performance tracking and reporting (Office of Management and Budget’s Federal Agency Scorecard). Specific descriptions of the goals and links to guidance and statutory requirements in each of the above categories can be found at the Office of Federal Sustainability’s E.O. 13834 web page.

Per E.O. 13834, a sustainable Federal building has the same meaning as a high-performance green building (42 U.S.C. §17092), which, when compared to similar buildings, reduces energy, water, and material use, improves occupant health and productivity; minimizes air and water pollution and waste generation; acquires sustainable products and services; increases reuse and recycling activities; and is located near multiple transportation modes. The Army Sustainable Design and Development policy outlines specific requirements in these aforementioned areas and uses the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building certification system to validate compliance with the Army policy and federal mandates. Army uses Total Building commissioning as the Quality Management process that ensure the owner project requirements carry through the life of the project from pre-design, design, construction and through to post occupancy and that the building has been tested to meet its intended performance prior to owner acceptance (ER 1110-345-723).

Limited fiscal resources require Army facilities to remain relevant for the many decades of its life. First costs are often only a fraction of the total cost of ownership for new construction and cannot be the sole source of design selection. Alternative designs shall be evaluated to optimize its sustainable features with the most life cycle cost effective solutions. The purpose of a Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) is to estimate the overall costs of project alternatives and to select the design that ensures the facility will provide the lowest overall cost of ownership consistent with its quality and function.

The U.S. Army’s Operational Energy (OE) program focuses on the energy and associated systems, information, and processes required to train, move, and sustain forces and systems for military operations. The Army OE program is fully nested with the Army Strategy and Army Vision, working to power the Army of the present and the future.

The primary objective of the Army OE program is to increase warfighting advantage to enable the Army to win the nation’s wars quickly and decisively in future operating environments where the ability to resupply our forward deployed forces will be contested. To accomplish this, the Army is developing capabilities which will provide enough energy to power the force of the future while reducing the demand of consumables, to include liquid fuel. A corollary result of demand reduction technologies is the reduced emission of harmful GHG emissions which will mitigate the impacts of climate change.

The U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) is the Army lead for modernizing the force and developing the capabilities the Army needs to maintain its standing as the world’s premier ground fighting force. AFC integrates with entrepreneurs, scientists and businesses to employ an entrepreneurial spirit to narrow existing capability gaps and create the best solution for our Soldiers.

Recent Guidance