SFTool on the Road – NFMT Conference

In our efforts to be a leader in green building education, SFTool goes out to meet building professionals and spread the good word on buying, building, and living green in your building. This month, we will be at the National Facilities Management & Technology Conference/Exposition in Baltimore, Maryland from March 22-24.

The focus of our booth is the Federal Facilities Skills Assessment Tool (FEDSAT). FEDSAT is a no-cost online skills assessment tool designed to help federal facilities personnel comply with the Federal Buildings Personnel Training act (FBPTA) of 2010. FEDSAT allows FBPTA affected personnel to demonstrate knowledge of high priority FBPTA “performances,” defined as typical job functions for facilities personnel.

FEDSAT helps facility managers assess their knowledge of the high-priority performances, fill gaps in those performances, and locate free training resources available from the Federal government, industry associations, and other sources, including resources that count for continuing education credits.

GSA’s Facilities Management Institute allows federal facility managers to manage and track progress towards fulfilling FBPTA requirements, and FEDSAT is fully integrated with the system to evaluate personnel on the 80 highest-priority performances. FMI also allows qualified individuals to ‘opt out’ of certain performances in FEDSAT if they are already satisfied by another professional certification or educational course.

Come over to booth #2395 and chat with us about everything FEDSAT and our other educational resources have to offer! We’ll be looking sharp, like we did at the Greenbuild Conference in November – check it out below!

Social Sustainability

Sustainability is most often associated with environmental friendliness, energy efficiency, or improving occupant comfort. However, the social aspects of sustainability are just as important to the effort as the more publicized ‘green’ benefits. Taking a lifecycle approach to identify all aspects that affect human life in sustainability efforts ensures Social Sustainability is not overlooked.

Social Sustainability, is defined broadly by the Integrated Network for Social Sustainability as “the social relationships, interactions, and institutions that affect, and are affected by, sustainable development.” SFTool’s new Social Sustainability module describes best practices, offers strategies, and provides resources from around the world designed to identify sectors at-risk for human rights violations so organizations and individuals can easily verify compliance with national and international standards. Follow the guide to help your building and procurement projects achieve their economic, environmental and social sustainability goals.

Concerns over socially sustainable development can originate both domestically and abroad and can come in many forms, such as:

• Unsafe working conditions, discrimination, and other workers’ rights violations
• Human trafficking
• Child labor or forced labor
• Privacy rights

The Social Sustainability page brings a wealth of information from across the globe into one place, including guidelines from the UN Guiding Principles, Global Reporting Initiative, US Departments of Labor and State, and many more. Procurement resources are further broken down into pre-award actions, like identifying human rights risks by category and country, and post-award actions, including verification of contractors’ claims of sourcing sustainably. In fact, there’s a whole separate page dedicated to resources that help with verification.

Those more interested in the issues or looking to ensure their projects, organizations, or business efforts are in line with international standards can go to the Initiatives, Guidelines, and Standards page. You can search by industry or guidance organization to see resources relevant to many social sustainability concerns.

SFTool’s new Social Sustainability module incorporates many strategies, best practices, and resources, but if you have an additional resource you think may be beneficial, send us a note using the ‘Give Feedback’ button at the bottom of every sftool.gov page!