This program saved the government $28 million a year. Now Trump is killing it

A nearly 15-year-old federal program designed to test and implement emerging technologies for reducing energy waste in buildings appears to have been canceled by the Trump Administration. The Green Proving Ground program, launched in 2011 and run by the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), was created to evaluate new private-sector green building technologies by installing them within federal facilities. Multiple sources tell Fast Company that projects previously approved for participation in the program have just been canceled. The Green Proving Ground’s webpages have been deleted from the GSA’s website.

GSA and DOE did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Participants in the Green Proving Ground program, speaking on background, tell Fast Company that they were informed in late January that their projects have effectively been canceled, and contractors hired to evaluate the efficacy of these technologies have had their contracts terminated.

Companies selected to participate in the Green Proving Ground program over the years range from established building materials manufacturers to startups designing new technologies for reducing energy waste. In recent years, companies selected to have their products evaluated through the program have produced things like low-carbon concrete, bi-directional electric vehicle charging infrastructure, vacuum-insulated windows, and heat pumps that use captured carbon dioxide. Since its launch in 2011, more than 100 technologies have been measured and evaluated through program. More than 20 are now being deployed within the GSA’s portfolio of green building retrofits.

Goverment’s big footprint

The GSA oversees 363 million square feet of real estate the federal government owns or leases in nearly 8,400 buildings nationwide. Previous GSA officials estimated that the technologies implemented through the Green Proving Ground program avoid 116,000 tons of CO2 emissions and save the government $28 million in energy costs annually.

The cancellation of the Green Proving Ground program could mean those savings disappear. It could also have a chilling effect on the development of new building materials and technologies. “Green Proving Ground is really about U.S. technology. It’s helping U.S. companies advance their work and prove it and create markets,” says Liz Beardsley, senior policy counsel at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), which oversees the LEED green building rating system. “Building and services are a significant export for the U.S. There may be a focus of green in this particular program, but it’s really more about technology and competitiveness.”

Though no official announcement has yet been made, the cancellation of the Green Proving Ground program aligns with the agenda being pursued by the GSA’s new acting administrator, Stephen Ehikian, who was appointed to the position by President Donald Trump. In an email obtained by Federal News Network, Ehikian outlined his priorities for the GSA, which include removing “extremist Green New Deal and ESG (environmental, social and governance) requirements from federal building construction, leasing and procurement to prioritize economic efficiency over ideological mandates.”

The Green Proving Ground program appears to be one of the environmentally-focused programs being removed. Trump has also withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, and revoked some elements of the funding of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

These moves halt energy efficiency efforts the federal government has been pursuing since the Obama Administration—and work that continued during the first Trump Administration. GSA has been retrofitting and redesigning its portfolio of buildings to be as energy efficient as possible. That includes replacing windows, installing heat pumps, and commissioning net-zero-energy building designs, among other efforts. The agency estimates it has saved $826 million in energy costs since 2008 through what are often simple building retrofits.

The construction conundrum

There’s a reason seemingly obscure building materials and technologies have gotten so much attention. The production of building materials and the construction of buildings adds up to an estimated 11% of all global carbon emissions. Operating buildings accounts for an estimated 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Improving the way buildings are built and run can have widespread impacts in combatting climate change.

Previous presidential administrations have embraced this approach, none more so than the Biden administration, during which federal green building retrofits got a major boost through funding allocated by the IRA, passed in 2022. The act included $3.4 billion for the GSA to use on efforts ranging from energy efficiency improvements to the development of more sustainable construction materials. In 2023, the Biden Administration set aside $30 million specifically for the Green Proving Ground program, with a goal of “turning federal buildings into testbeds for clean energy innovation.”

It’s funding that’s helped support the development and advancement of a variety of new technologies. Marshall Cox is founder and CEO of Kelvin, maker of an insulated radiator cover. The company was one of 20 selected to participate in the Green Proving Ground program in 2023. Cox says the program’s cancellation is a blow to startups trying to innovate in the building technology sector. “Getting a contract with GSA is one of the biggest things that could happen to a company, and that’s now stopped,” he says.

Even the chance to have technology vetted through the program could be a make or break situation for a company. Though Kelvin’s participation in the program had no funding attached, many other companies did receive financial support. “The other companies, by and large, are in this scenario potentially where they got a first milestone payment for their project and they bought probably millions of dollars’ worth of equipment and are deploying it. And now they’re not going to get that second check eventually,” Cox says. “That’s devastating for a company.”

The Trump administration’s cancellation of the Green Proving Ground program in an indication that the federal government’s energy efficiency gains could be coming to an end.

Robin Carnahan, who was GSA Administrator during the Biden Administration, told Fast Company in September that the kind of work being done through programs like the Green Proving Ground should be beyond the realm of politics. “These are smart investments. That’s the bottom line,” Carnahan said. “When things save money and they make economic sense, that’s not a political fight. That is just good stewardship of taxpayer money.”

With the new administration, that assertion seems to have been overwritten by more ideological concerns. “It’s just a lost opportunity to prove new technologies,” says Ben Evans, federal legislative director for USGBC.