Finds that research has shown the importance of reducing environmental impacts through building design. The primary focus on building designs has been an attempt to reduce heating and cooling requirements over the course of a building's lifetime. However, what has been overlooked are opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts at earlier stages in the building and construction design process. The selection of building materials and products, such as using wood and wood products in the design stage, provides substantial opportunities to reduce lifetime greenhouse gas emissions. A key component of life-cycle cost analysis is the energy expended in the manufacturing and production of the building materials being considered in the construction of public facilities.

Requires the department of general administration, in consultation with affected public agencies, to develop and issue guidelines that must contain provisions that establish a method for calculating the embodied energy used in building materials for construction of a major facility and identify simplified methods to ensure low embodied energy building materials are used in the building design.