The STEP Foundation offers a 179-page guide—The Sustainable Technology Environments Program Guide—as a free download. On its website, the foundation says the guide is a tool for those who “believe sustainability is about doing the right thing, as well as good business.” It emphasizes that STEP, the Sustainable Technology Environments Program, “has been created by manufacturers, designers, integrators, programmers and the users of technology to take the next step forward to creating sustainable environments.
“The STEP rating system encourages project owners and technology providers to follow a systematic approach to design, integration, and operation of technology systems,” the foundation continued. “It is built on five phases of activity: 1) Program phase, 2) Architectural and infrastructure design, 3) System design, 4) Systems integration, 5) Operations.”
The organization also explained that its criteria, as spelled out in the guide, “are intended to go ‘one step’ beyond” other programs “to produce an occupied, sustainable building. STEP team-member partnerships are meant to employ the best practices and standards for sustainability as it applies to its projects.”