The objective of the DOE Sustainable Design program is to provide tools for DOE facility designers for incorporating design for environment and pollution prevention opportunities into DOE facility design projects.

This web page is intended to help designers estimate the potential benefits of pollution prevention alternatives. It contains the following sections:

When is cost justification required?

How are pollution prevention alternatives identified?

How are project life-cycle costs estimated?

How are pollution prevention alternatives evaluated?

When is cost justification required?

Most DOE facilities are designed to operate for many years or decades. For this reason, the costs of designing and constructing these facilities is typically dwarfed by the life-cycle costs of operating and maintaining these facilities. The potential for hazardous and radioactive material contamination means that costs of decommissioning and site restoration also can have a significant impact on total system life-cycle cost. Pollution prevention opportunities that deal with all phases of a facility’s life cycle should be examined to help minimized facility life-cycle cost. Some pollution prevention opportunities, once identified, will require little effort to justify, while others may require more in-depth analysis.

Potentially viable pollution prevention alternatives in facility design can be grouped into 2 categories for determining cost justification requirements:

1. Those with negligible (or negative) up-front costs

2. Those that require an upfront investment, and are expected to save money in the future

A pollution prevention alternative that fits into the first category generally should not require extensive cost justification before being adopted. An alternative that falls in the second category typically will require detailed cost justification.

An example of a pollution prevention alternative that could be grouped in the first category is use of drought-resistant landscaping in arid climates. This alternative could reduce upfront costs of landscape irrigation systems relative to conventional landscaping, as well as reducing the cost of water usage during the life of the facility.

An example of a pollution prevention alternative that might be grouped in the second category is the use of high-efficiency light fixtures that have a significantly higher installed cost than light fixtures that would otherwise be specified. In this case, the life-cycle savings from reduced energy consumption would need to be sufficient to offset the higher upfront cost of the high-efficiency lighting.

How are pollution prevention alternatives identified?

DOE project design stall that is unfamiliar with the pollution prevention alternatives that might be applicable to a specific project could consider taking a Sustainable Design Training Course. Other sources of guidance include the DOE life-cycle asset management Pollution Prevention Good Practice Guide and the showcase projects included in this Web site. The EDGE Software also provides a systematic structure for quickly identifying pollution prevention opportunities in different stages of the facility design process. Additionally, a DOE facility designer could contact their operations office or Pollution Prevention Coordinator to get the latest information about relevant activities at their site or around DOE.

How are project life-cycle costs estimated?

The system developed for estimating the cost of DOE facility projects, as well as other project management issues, is outlined in DOE Order 413.3 Program and Project Management for the Acquisition of Capital Assets. The DOE project management system is designed to be consistent with the broader government-wide cost management requirements of OMB Circular A-11 Part 3.

The DOE project management order incorporates a number of good practice guides to provide sufficient policy and information for successful management of DOE projects. One of these good practice guides is GPG-FM-025A, Pollution Prevention which was mentioned previously. Another good practice guide, GPG-FM-032A, Life Cycle Cost, provides detailed guidance on life-cycle cost estimating methods, analysis, and assumptions. To the extent feasible, pollution prevention opportunities should be identified and incorporated into project life-cycle cost estimates using these two good practice guides.

It is essential to evaluate the life-cycle cost of a project early in the design process to inform decision-makers about trade-offs between upfront cost versus operations, maintenance, and decommissioning cost. However, cost estimates also must be updated periodically through the facility design process. Additional discussion of DOE’s cost estimating practices can be found in DOE Order 430.1 Chapter 2.

Sources of information to help DOE project managers evaluate the potential savings from pollution prevention alternatives are outlined below.

How are pollution prevention alternatives evaluated?

Pollution prevention opportunities should be evaluated at all stages of the design of DOE projects to help minimize the life-cycle cost of these facilities. Assessing the potential benefits of pollution prevention projects often requires estimating the cost savings from specific types of wastes, such as low-level radioactive waste or mixed radioactive and hazardous waste. DOE facility designers often are not familiar with the cost savings attributable to reductions of each of the many potential categories of waste that can be produced.

To help disseminate information about waste management cost savings through pollution prevention, DOE assembled a multi-site team to quantify actual costs incurred in the DOE Complex. The results of this study were published in the report Avoidable Waste Management Costs (INEL-94/0250). Copies of this report can be obtained by contacting Chris Ischay at 208-526-4382. The weighted average cost of major waste categories evaluated in this report are summarized below:

Waste Type	Cost Per Unit
Low level radioactive [$/cubic meter] (contact handled, untreated)	1,569
Mixed hazardous, low level radioactive [$/cubic meter]	10,992
Transuranic [$/cubic meter]	48,267
RCRA hazardous [$/kilogram]	32

Besides the DOE-wide waste management costs cited in the above report, individual sites also track and update waste management costs, often for the explicit purpose of evaluating the benefits of pollution prevention projects. For information about specific waste costs at your DOE site, contact your operations office pollution prevention coordinator.

As mentioned the previous section above, estimation of life-cycle cost is one of the key techniques for evaluating pollution prevention opportunities in the course of a DOE facility design project. The "bottom line"of a life-cycle cost assessment is the net present value (NPV) of each alternative that is evaluated. As discussed in GPG-FM-032A, Life Cycle Cost, NPV is a sum of the cash flow resulting from the full life cycle of a project, subject to a discount rate to account for the time value of money. A sample NPV calculation can be viewed at Example Life Cycle Cost Calculation.

Another common metric used in DOE to evaluate potential investments in pollution prevention projects is return on investment (ROI). ROI, usually expressed as a percentage, is the difference in annual operations and maintenance costs after implementing a pollution prevention alternative (compared to a baseline) divided by implementation costs. A sample ROI calculation can be viewed at Example Return on Investment Calculation.

DOE’s Office of Pollution Prevention, EM77 frequently sets aside funding for high ROI pollution prevention projects around the Complex. For information about successful DOE pollution prevention ROI projects, see the DOE-AL National Pollution Prevention Center of Excellence.

An additional source of information that may be of assistance in conducting pollution prevention project cost evaluations is the EPA Environmental Accounting Resources webpage.