Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato has appointed the county's first sustainability manager to steer the wide-ranging Allegheny Green Initiative, which includes an upcoming audit of energy costs and output in all county buildings and vehicle fleet.

In her role as the county's first sustainability manager, Jeaneen Zappa will work with county department directors and the Green Action Team, which Mr. Onorato created last year to identify ways to reduce the county's ecological footprint, officials said.

"The hiring of a sustainability manager is part of our ongoing effort to operate an efficient and environmentally friendly government that uses less energy and saves taxpayers money," said Mr. Onorato.

Ms. Zappa, 43, an accredited professional with the national environmental building standards program known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED standards, was most recently the green business development director for the Green Building Alliance.

The alliance is a nonprofit organization that offers education and training in green building practices, research services and product development funding, and technical support for green building projects.

Her responsibilities will include drafting environmentally preferable procurement policies, expanding recycling in county-owned facilities and providing sustainability training to employees.

She will play a central role in coordinating the county's greenhouse gas inventory, which will include baseline quantifications for energy usage in county buildings, fuel usage in county vehicles, and emissions from all other county operations, said Kevin Evanto, Mr. Onorato's spokesman.

A graduate of Syracuse University, Ms. Zappa also holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Pittsburgh's Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business.

Ms. Zappa, whose first day of work is Monday, will be paid $85,000 a year.