Location Efficiency Score

Location efficiency refers to the effect of a facility’s location on travel behavior and related environmental impacts such as GHG emissions from vehicles. An efficient location can also help to encourage infill development and prevent sprawl, as well as reducing employees’ commute burdens, promoting public health, and helping to attract and retain future generations of employees (which statistically prefer less auto-reliant environments). While not included in Executive Order B-18-12, employee commuting (as well as travel from other users of State facilities) and impacts on land use patterns are nonetheless significant components of State facilities’ environmental footprint, so location efficiency should be considered alongside energy and water efficiency as a core attribute of any green building.

The U.S. General Services Administration’s Smart Location Calculator (SLC) provides a measure of location efficiency that reflects the efficiency of a location for employee commuting. The 0 - 100 score is a composite number which takes into account factors including a site’s accessibility via transit, biking and walking; regional mode share; demographics; the mix of uses in the surrounding neighborhood; accessibility of the site to lower-income residents; and others. A score of 0 indicates the least efficient locations within a given region— likely to generate more vehicle travel and related emissions — and a score of 100 indicates the most efficient sites within a given region, likely to generate significantly less vehicle travel and related emissions as compared to the surrounding region.

In December, 2016, the California Strategic Growth Council adopted the Resolution on Location Efficiency in Strategic Growth Council Agency Leased Facilities, committing to a goal of increasing the location efficiency of new leases for infill-compatible uses by 10 percent above the 2016 average. GovOps also uses a 10 percent improvement goal for all departments as part of the Sustainability Roadmaps.

The department scores for location efficiency on this website represent the department-wide average for leased facilities only. A location efficiency score does not appear for State-owned facilities, or for departments with no leases.