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A nearly 15-year-old federal program designed to test and implement emerging technologies for reducing energy waste in buildings appears to have been canceled by the Trump Administration. The Green Proving Ground program, launched in 2011 and run by the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), was created to evaluate new private-sector green building technologies by installing them within federal facilities. Multiple sources tell Fast Company that projects previously approved for participation in the program have just been canceled. The Green Proving Ground’s webpages have been deleted from the GSA’s website. GSA and DOE did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Participants in the Green Proving Ground program, speaking on background, tell Fast Company that they were informed in late January that their projects have effectively been canceled, and contractors hired to evaluate the efficacy of these technologies have had their contracts terminated. Companies selected to participate in the Green Proving Ground program over the years range from established building materials manufacturers to startups designing new technologies for reducing energy waste. In recent years, companies selected to have their products evaluated through the program have produced things like low-carbon concrete, bi-directional electric vehicle charging infrastructure, vacuum-insulated windows, and heat pumps that use captured carbon dioxide. Since its launch in 2011, more than 100 technologies have been measured and evaluated through program. More than 20 are now being deployed within the GSA’s portfolio of green building retrofits. Goverment’s big footprint The GSA oversees 363 million square feet of real estate the federal government owns or leases in nearly 8,400 buildings nationwide. Previous GSA officials estimated that the technologies implemented through the Green Proving Ground program avoid 116,000 tons of CO2 emissions and save the government $28 million in energy costs annually. The cancellation of the Green Proving Ground program could mean those savings disappear. It could also have a chilling effect on the development of new building materials and technologies. Green Proving Ground is really about U.S. technology. It’s helping U.S. companies advance their work and prove it and create markets, says Liz Beardsley, senior policy counsel at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), which oversees the LEED green building rating system. Building and services are a significant export for the U.S. There may be a focus of green in this particular program, but it’s really more about technology and competitiveness. Though no official announcement has yet been made, the cancellation of the Green Proving Ground program aligns with the agenda being pursued by the GSA’s new acting administrator, Stephen Ehikian, who was appointed to the position by President Donald Trump. In an email obtained by Federal News Network, Ehikian outlined his priorities for the GSA, which include removing extremist Green New Deal and ESG (environmental, social and governance) requirements from federal building construction, leasing and procurement to prioritize economic efficiency over ideological mandates. The Green Proving Ground program appears to be one of the environmentally-focused programs being removed. Trump has also withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, and revoked some elements of the funding of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). These moves halt energy efficiency efforts the federal government has been pursuing since the Obama Administrationand work that continued during the first Trump Administration. GSA has been retrofitting and redesigning its portfolio of buildings to be as energy efficient as possible. That includes replacing windows, installing heat pumps, and commissioning net-zero-energy building designs, among other efforts. The agency estimates it has saved $826 million in energy costs since 2008 through what are often simple building retrofits. The construction conundrum There’s a reason seemingly obscure building materials and technologies have gotten so much attention. The production of building materials and the construction of buildings adds up to an estimated 11% of all global carbon emissions. Operating buildings accounts for an estimated 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Improving the way buildings are built and run can have widespread impacts in combatting climate change. Previous presidential administrations have embraced this approach, none more so than the Biden administration, during which federal green building retrofits got a major boost through funding allocated by the IRA, passed in 2022. The act included $3.4 billion for the GSA to use on efforts ranging from energy efficiency improvements to the development of more sustainable construction materials. In 2023, the Biden Administration set aside $30 million specifically for the Green Proving Ground program, with a goal of turning federal buildings into testbeds for clean energy innovation. It’s funding that’s helped support the development and advancement of a variety of new technologies. Marshall Cox is founder and CEO of Kelvin, maker of an insulated radiator cover. The company was one of 20 selected to participate in the Green Proving Ground program in 2023. Cox says the program’s cancellation is a blow to startups trying to innovate in the building technology sector. Getting a contract with GSA is one of the biggest things that could happen to a company, and that’s now stopped, he says. Even the chance to have technology vetted through the program could be a make or break situation fora company. Though Kelvin’s participation in the program had no funding attached, many other companies did receive financial support. The other companies, by and large, are in this scenario potentially where they got a first milestone payment for their project and they bought probably millions of dollars’ worth of equipment and are deploying it. And now they’re not going to get that second check eventually, Cox says. That’s devastating for a company. The Trump administration’s cancellation of the Green Proving Ground program in an indication that the federal government’s energy efficiency gains could be coming to an end. Robin Carnahan, who was GSA Administrator during the Biden Administration, told Fast Company in September that the kind of work being done through programs like the Green Proving Ground should be beyond the realm of politics. These are smart investments. That’s the bottom line, Carnahan said. When things save money and they make economic sense, that’s not a political fight. That is just good stewardship of taxpayer money. With the new administration, that assertion seems to have been overwritten by more ideological concerns. It’s just a lost opportunity to prove new technologies, says Ben Evans, federal legislative director for USGBC.
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E-Commerce
Theres nothing more annoying than arriving at your destination and finding that your checked baggage didnt make the trip. But thanks to Apple’s new partnership with 15 different airlines, its easier than ever to track down your lost luggageprovided you have the right $29 gadget. Heres what you need to know to help track down your missing baggage as efficiently as possible. U.S. airlines mishandle millions of bags every year While most checked bags get on the proper flight with their owner and arrive as planned, the U.S. Department of Transportation says over 2.8 million bags were mishandled by reporting U.S. carriers in 2023. The agency defines a mishandled bag as one that is lost, delayed, damaged or pilfered. In 2023, about 5.8 out of every 1,000 passengers had something happen to their checked baggage, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. While a damaged bag is unfortunate, at least most your belongings arrive. “Mishandled” bags that are lost, delayed, or stolen, on the other hand, can drastically impact your trip and lead to significant financial losses, depending on what they contain. And, if youre traveling for business, a lost bag can significantly hamper your work plans. Historically, the only way you could track your checked baggage was via the identifier on the sticker that a gate agent placed on your bag when you dropped it off. In 2021, Apple introduced the AirTag item tracker, giving hundreds of millions of iPhone users a new way to track their itemswhether that included keys, purses, or flash drives. Unsurprisingly, many users used AirTags to help track their checked bags from one location to another. The problem was that while users could easily see where their AirTag and attached items were, using the Find My app on their iPhone, they had no easy way to share this information with the airline staff tasked with tracking missing luggage. But now, thanks to recent software updates and agreements with major airlines, thats changed. Apple teams up with airlines to share AirTag locations Apple released iOS 18.2 in mid-December. The iPhone operating system update garnered headlines for integrating ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence. However, iOS 18.2 also introduced a new feature to AirTags called Share Item Location. The feature finally allows users to easily share the location of an AirTag with another individual of their choice. When an AirTag owner shares its location using the Share Item Location feature, the person they choose will receive a link to an interactive map viable in a web browser. The map will show the last known location of the AirTag as well as its geo-coordinates. This allows a third party to track down an AirTags shared location easily. [Image: Apple] AirTags have had their share of criticisms since bad actors can use them in nefarious ways, but with Share Item Location, Apple includes a restriction regarding who can access the shared link revealing the AirTags location. After clicking on the link, an individual must log into the Share Item Location portal with their Apple ID or an airline partner ID. This ensures that there is always a record of who is viewing your AirTags location. Airlines that have partnered with Apple so far include Aer Lingus, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, Brussels Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Eurowings, Iberia, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Lufthansa, Qantas, Singapore Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Turkish Airlines, United Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Vueling. If you fly United and you use the United Airlines app to file a missing bag report, you can now include the AirTags Share Item Location link with the report. This, says David Kinzelman, United’s chief customer officer, allows Uniteds staff to use the location information to find the bag and get it reunited with its owner much more quickly.” How to share your AirTags location with an airline to help find your missing luggage With the ability to now share your AirTags location with many of the worlds top airlines, it seems like an AirTag should be in every travelers arsenal. If youve lost a piece of luggage (ugh!) but were savvy enough to have put an AirTag on it, heres how to share its location with airline staff: Open the Find My app on your iPhone. Tap the Items button in the bottom toolbar. Select the AirTag attached to your missing luggage from the list of items. On the next screen, tap Share Item Location. Tap Continue. Now tap the Share Link button and copy and paste the URL into the airlines missing baggage report. Airline staff will then log into the AirTag Share Item Location portal to help identify the location of your missing bag so you can get it back as quickly as possible. A single AirTag is just $29; theres no associated subscription fee for the Find My tracking service. You can also buy a pack of four AirTags from Apple for just $99perfect if you check a lot of bags when you travel.
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E-Commerce
The head of Italy’s fashion chamber said he has appealed to its government to protect the country’s second-largest industry from possible tariffs from the Trump administration. “We hope they dont arrive,” Carlo Capasa, Italian National Fashion Chamber president, said Wednesday during the presentation of the calendar for the next Milan Fashion Week later this month. If [President Donald] Trump penalizes the second industry in Italy, it is a pretty hostile declaration. Fashion generates 5% of Italy’s gross domestic product, or 75 billion euros ($78 billion), through the production and sale of textiles, apparel, and footwear, and with 1.2 million employees, according to a study by the state development bank CDP released in December. The threat of tariffs from Trump is creating uncertainty in the industry as it experiences a global contraction that shrank global sales in 2024 by 5%, dropping to 96 billion euros from 110 billion euros in 2023, according to figures released by the fashion chamber. Beyond textiles, apparel, and footwear, the figures also include jewelry, eyewear, and leather goods. While Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on European imports to the U.S., he has not made clear plans. Italy exported 4.6 billion euros worth of luxury fashion to the United States during the first 10 months of last year, including apparel, footwear, leather goods, jewelry and eyewear. It is the third market following France and Germany, with 7.6 billion euros and 4.7 billion euros in sales of Italian luxury fashion, respectively, during the same period. Exports in the same period were up 2.5% to 91 billion euros, according to the fashion chamber data. Despite the drop in global sales, the industry is still topping the results before the COVID-19 pandemic, with sales of 90 billion euros in 2019. By Colleen Barry, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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