Reducing The Government’s Carbon Footprint – Anna Siefken, Federal Energy Management Program

Electric Ladies Podcast

“We work with this entire portfolio of buildings of the federal government, as you mentioned, about 350,000 buildings, also including 600,000 cars and trucks in the fleet, all of them looking towards decarbonization…We do it through policy and planning. So, we analyze the management mandates, the energy management mandates that come out, and we help agencies understand what they need to do to meet those legislative goals. We do analysis and strategy, so we help work alongside the agencies to identify the short and long-term opportunities and how they can…save money and to meet these higher goals. We do it through execution and funding.” Anna Siefken on Electric Ladies Podcast

The federal government has 350,000 buildings across the country and internationally, which are all looking to decarbonize, just as the government suggests we all do. How do you reduce the carbon footprint of such a massive and varied collection of buildings?

Listen to Anna Siefken, Deputy Director at the Federal Energy Management Program at the U.S. Department of Energy, explain how they do and maybe discover some opportunities for your company to help them, as well as some insightful career advice, in this fascinating discussion with Electric Ladies host Joan Michelson.

You’ll hear about:

• What exactly the Federal Energy Management Program does and how they do it.
• The impact of these buildings and initiatives on their local economies – including how and when they use subcontractors, including women-owned businesses and helping disadvantaged communities.
• How FEMP trains leaders across the government to make decisions that reduce their energy and water use, and CO2 emissions, as well as tools they provide to help.
• Plus, insightful career advice, such as…

“There are spaces for everyone in this clean energy transition…A way for a person to get more involved is, I've got to say DOE website has a lot of postings….(Or) Find someone (on LinkedIn) who's in a position that is exactly what you think you want to be doing. And then first map your own skills to what that person is saying they're doing… Or you can also do this with like open positions, you go and you look for open positions that you think you might qualify for and then back in your skills…Figure out how your skills map to either what that person is doing or what that position is asking for, because you'll find that the similarities are there.” Anna Siefken on Electric Ladies Podcast

Read Joan’s Forbes articles here.

You'll also like:

• Rachel McCleery, Senior Advisor, Treasury Dept. Inflation Reduction Act Program, on how exactly to leverage the IRA to reduce a building or business’s carbon footprint and save money.
• Vanessa Chan, Ph.D., Chief Commercialization Officer of the Department of Energy and Director of the Office of Technology Transitions, on the Inflation Reduction Act and the transition to clean energy.
• Polly Trottenberg, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation, on the transportation revolution taking place.
• Judith Pryor, Vice Chair & First Vice President, Export Import Bank of the U.S., on leveraging exporting and trade for energy, climate and sustainability, as well as economic development.
• Lisa Jacobson of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy & Tara Narayanan, of Bloomberg NEF on their new Energy Factbook 2024, including the Inflation Reduction Act opportunities.

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