The race to net zero has begun in the United States military. That race, however, is bound to be a long, uphill marathon. With a facilities footprint of over 2.5 billion square feet, the Department of Defense holds perhaps the largest building portfolio of any organization in the world.
Just the task of drawing up plans to renovate those facilities can – and will – take years. But many legs of the race need to be completed before designs can be drawn for most facilities, and time is not exactly on the DOD’s side.
The federal government’s net zero initiative states that departments should achieve net zero by 2050, but 65% of that reduction is to be completed by 2030. That’s only a handful of years to complete a massive shift away from fossil fuel dependence, introducing an early five-year sprint into the marathon.
Each military branch will navigate its own course riddled with obstacles and switchbacks on the climb to net zero. And with the 2030 goal looming, let’s take a look at some of the challenges facing various military branches as they begin the early steps of their sprint stage*.
Obstacles on the Course
Army/USACE
The Army Corps of Engineers has a goal of reducing 50% of greenhouse emissions by 2030 – slightly below the 65% overall federal goal – on their way to reaching net zero by 2050. While much of the early work toward the 2030 deadline will be accomplished by investing in electric vehicle fleets and the grids to support them, facilities changes will be needed to reach their 50% threshold.
Adding to the complexity is the fact that many forts across the Midwest are battling water shortages and low river levels. This means that USACE will be prioritizing new methods for maximizing water harvesting and reuse in the window between now and 2030, pulling significant time and resources away from electrification efforts.
Air Force
The Air Force is investing heavily in climate resiliency efforts, devoting facilities sustainment, restoration and modernization (FSRM) funds to projects that expand their solar, wind and geothermal power usage. That said, only about 10% of the branch’s funding is eligible for facilities use, while the other 90% is devoted to combat readiness, weaponry and nuclear modernization.
To supplement that limited budget, the Air Force is reinvesting money saved by energy efficiencies into their facilities resiliency efforts. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to their estimated $28 billion deferred maintenance backlog. About one-third of the Force’s facilities are 60 or more years old and past their planned lifecycles.
Outdated facilities are inefficient, raising the grade on the Air Force’s climb to net zero. But they’re also expensive to replace. In order to reduce replacement costs, the Force is hoping to recapitalize as many of those facilities as possible without doing full replacements, with the goal of getting 25 more years of use from each recapitalized facility. 25 years, however, is right at the federal 2050 net zero goal, so each recapitalized facility will need to be equipped to handle fossil fuel independence.
Navy & Coast Guard
The Navy and Coast Guard face many of the same obstacles on their respective races, though on different scales given the considerable size difference between their facilities portfolios. Both are undergoing their largest shipyard revitalization efforts in history, with the Navy receiving nearly $2 billion to do so and the Guard’s funding matching only a fraction of that amount.
Those modernization funds are split across many priorities. For the Coast Guard, the majority is going to updating shipyards to accommodate the largest overhaul of their fleet since World War II, a project that doesn’t necessarily involve any net zero or carbon reduction efforts. Meanwhile, the Navy, much like the Air Force, is largely remedying the effects of time on their facilities. And while some of those updates will further the move to fossil fuel independence, the extent of the Navy’s electrification plans isn’t clear now.
More pressing, still, though is the need to bolster existing shipyard facilities against severe weather events. The rise in sea levels and severity of hurricanes and typhoons in the last quarter century present existential threats to many shipyards. Like the Army, both the Navy and Coast Guard are currently using facilities funding to counter the ongoing effects of climate change before shifting climate impact prevention to the top of the priority list.
Fuel for the Long Race Ahead
All of the investments listed above are important for keeping our military’s facilities, which form the foundation for our nation’s strength and safety, usable both now and into the future. The reality of competing priorities, however, adds to the grade and obstacles on each branch’s route to net zero. Especially when federal budgets are released in such constrained windows, the question of which priority will supersede the others puts constant pressure on military DPWs and facilities teams.
With such a massive portfolio, knowing what facilities you have, let alone their conditions and the expected lifecycles of their components, is a big enough challenge. Large scale tools like BUILDER can help, but not every base uses it. Instead, having a standardized assessment of each site’s individual buildings and components conditions would be ideal.
With a facilities footprint of over 2.5 billion square feet, the Department of Defense holds perhaps the largest building portfolio of any organization in the world
Just knowing the conditions of buildings isn’t enough, though, if those condition assessments don’t feed into a larger portfolio analysis system that can aggregate the data. When that capability is unlocked, then facilities leadership can compare data across multiple campuses apples-to-apples. Only then can true strategic decisions be made about where to invest first, which needs can wait and where to divest, leading to a true, actionable capital plan that makes clear the best path to the summit.
With that roadmap in hand, branches can begin organizing to-do lists for MSR projects to prepare for the years leading to 2030. Knowing that budgets can vary year-to-year, those to-do lists will need to be somewhat flexible, allowing priorities to change if funding does. And the best way to ensure flexibility for MSR projects is with IDIQ contracts.
By integrating planning and design into the job order process, IDIQs like SATOC, SABER and JOC significantly cut down on pre-construction time and increase cost control for maintenance and repair projects. Especially where low-lift or repeatable designs are a viable option, IDIQs negate the issue of elongated bid and contracting processes that compound the effects of deferred maintenance.
With the race to net zero officially underway, branches are in the tough position of needing to sprint now while also keeping the longer goal in mind – of not compromising current operations while also making progress toward a future vision. As with any race, running alone makes the journey harder. Gordian has served as a valued planning, estimating and contracting partner for the military for over three decades and is ready to join in the race to net zero. Contact us to find out how we can help make your installation’s or division’s road there smoother.
*The above challenges and statistics are taken directly from speeches given by branch leaders at Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) events across 2023 and 2024.
