As the word "green" becomes integrated into all aspects of government, what the word really means is ambiguous at best, Maricopa and Pinal County officials say.

In Maricopa County, a program developed and coauthored by Jonce Walker, Maricopa County sustainability manager, sets specific standards on how the county as a whole is going green.

"We want to be a national leader in sustainability," Mr. Walker said while sitting in his office in central Phoenix, 501 W. 44th St. "To not just talk about it, but to actually implement this. It can be a very ambiguous thing."

The Maricopa County Green Government Program is a program requiring, among other things, 10 core departments to use recycled materials for building project, reduce energy costs and water use.

"There are lots of things that are built into sustainability and building green," he explained. "To me it is responsible development; it is ethical decisions."

But providing education to the more than 13,000 Maricopa County employees is a daunting task, Mr. Walker said.

"We are trying to educate people on how much energy is used," he said of efforts to reduce energy costs attached to each square foot of Maricopa County facilities. "Energy consumption is the most cost to running a building. The county has a massive energy bill."

While Mr. Walker says going green and becoming sustainable is, in part, about saving dollars, he contends a lot of measures that can be taken are just proactive choices.

"It’s not just about cost," he explained of other factors than just the bottom line. "How is this building going to effect the people who are going to be using this building."

Mr. Walker says the trick is to think about sustainability from a holistic approach.

"These are not really expensive ... a lot of things are just decisions to make the property more efficient," he said of taking into account factors such as climate, landscape and architecture design. "You have to think of it as a project not just as a structure."

The Green Government Project, which was adopted as county policy June 2008, is, as Mr. Walker put it, "a policy document."

"We want to look at zoning ordinances," he said of initial actions taken by the Green Government Program. "We are basically doing an overhaul of the county’s zoning rules so not to prohibit green building,"

Mr. Walker says before you can lead, you have to know where you are going.

"We are showing that our house is in order before we say this is how they ought to be," he pointed out. "It is showing that we are pretty serious about this."

Through the Green Government Project a Green Government Council was formed with members from all county departments. The council meets monthly.

"County managers have been very supportive and very involved," he said of the Green Government Council. "The momentum is really shifting."

Green Government Council meets to share ideas and implement new cost savings efforts for Maricopa County departments, Mr. Walker explained. He says he is seeing a distinctive change in how Maricopa County chooses to operate.

"They are actually becoming accountable," he said of county management looking at proactive ways to be more cost-effective. Although the perception may be that East Valley governments are "going green" because of the recent downturn in the economy and a down cycle to fiscal budgets, that is not case, necessarily, Mr. Walker says.

"I don’t think all county managers and employees are only doing it because of that," he said of down budgets forcing this new "go green" mentality in county government. "To me the biggest success is that county management believes in this."

Examples of how Maricopa County started its efforts prior to the economic downturn are three structures that accentuate green building principles.

"In the East Valley, the one that springs to mind is the Usery Park visitor center," he explained. "We built them to (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) third-party standards."

There are five key areas to LEED certification — sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials and resources selection, and indoor environmental quality — according to the U.S. Green Council Web site, http://www.usgbc.org.

All three of the new nature centers — Estrella Mountain Regional Park, Cave Creek Regional Park and Usery Mountain Regional Park — are carbon copies of each other, Mr. Walker said.

"The goal of the project was to design a fully functional, sustainable and energy-efficient visitor’s center while minimizing the disturbance to the natural landscape and maximizing the design compatibility with the natural surroundings," the Maricopa County Web site, http://www.maricopa.gov, states.

According to Jennifer Johnston, Usery Mountain Regional Park supervisor, the attributes of the facility including an earthy pathway, outdoor amphitheater, a garden roof system, innovative use of daylight for heating during the winter months and 20-inch masonry walls all helping the facility be as cost-efficient as structurally possible.

"We are feeling a very big responsibility to our environment, community and our residents as a department as a whole," she said at the Usery Mountain Park facility June 16. "We have to make the best use of every dollar we have or are going to get."

The 4,000-square-foot facilities cost $700,000 and are paid through capital improvement projects funded through money allocated to Maricopa County from the state, according to Donna Taylor, a spokeswoman for the county.

"We are allotted so much each year for our CIP projects," she said in a phone interview. "All of the money that is generated from entry fees stays within that park."

Ms. Johnston says she is hoping for a fall grand opening celebration for the Usery Mountain Nature Center.

Although Maricopa County government has no power over how cities and towns in the East Valley choose to build and develop, Mr. Walker says he is encouraged by what municipalities are doing.

"We don’t have a lot of jurisdiction in the East Valley," he said. "The cities in the East Valley, like, say, Chandler and Queen Creek, they are really pushing forward."

In August, Mr. Walker is anticipated to present to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors the first-year tallies of what reductions in waste, water use and what kind of cost savings are realized through the Green Government Program.

Mr. Walker says his vision is to one day have all East Valley municipalities adopt the Green Government Program.