The Sustainable Operations and Climate Change (SOCC) Branch is part of the Park Facility Management Division. Our staff develops comprehensive and high quality programs to assist parks in implementing sustainable best practices in the following four areas: Climate Change Mitigation and Facilities Adaptation, Energy conservation, Sustainable Building Design and Operation, and Pollution Prevention. As steward of the nation’s most treasured landscapes, the NPS associates a strong environmental ethic with ensuring that those landscapes be protected for our posterity.

Recent Executive and Secretarial Orders require the government and Department of Interior agencies to increase sustainable practices and reduce their environmental footprints. The SOCC already has programs in place to tackle these issues and is expanding them to meet the growing demand within the bureau. The NPS is one of the largest land managers and operators of facilities in the federal government. Through sustainable practices in its facilities, the NPS can reduce its environmental footprint and educate visitors about how they can reduce their environmental impact.

Within this context, the SOCC is growing a number of its programs to provide more support to parks as they implement sustainability projects and programs, in addition to developing a Servicewide Green Parks Plan.

Through this website, visitors can learn more about our program areas, stay updated on news and events that impact parks, find sustainability and climate change web resources and links to other sustainability programs within and outside the NPS, and read legislation that guides our activities and the goals set forth in the Green Parks Plan.