The increased frequency of severe weather events and aging infrastructure has caused military installations to have a renewed focus on sustainability. The federal government has set multiple sustainability mandates related to greening federal infrastructure and operations across its global sites.   

Covering nearly 200,000 acres and housing nearly 11,000 troops, Fort Polk is the Army's Joint Readiness Training Center with a mission to train brigade combat teams for war. With a critical mission to the Army, Fort Polk contracted the HDR team to develop an Energy and Sustainability Plan for the Fort Polk Hub Area. This plan provides Fort Polk a roadmap for how the installation can be more energy resilient, through conservation initiatives and community partnerships. 

The Energy and Sustainability Component plan provides a template for compliance in 5-year increments for the next 25 years. Leveraging successful NetZero Waste initiatives, the plan outlines opportunities to reinvigorate the sustainability outreach program. It also implements an accountability program to support energy-use intensity reduction by 25 percent, use of renewable technologies, water conservation and improved stormwater management to advance the installation’s holistic ecological footprint. The team of planners and engineers analyzed six sustainability components through a vision and goal setting workshop and calculated quantitative baselines to establish a metric to measure future progress. The resulting action plans included quantifiable steps to meet all sustainability mandates and goals established during the workshop.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Parker Gyokeres/Released)