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Local Governments Rally Round EMSs By Craig Ruberti & Faith Leavitt, GETF
Last April, the Global Environment & Technolgoy Foundation, through a cooperative agreement with U.S. EPA, unveiled a second EMS Pilot Project for Local Governments. Representatives from fourteen local government entities met in Scottsdale, Arizona for a three-day workshop featuring EMS awareness training, review sessions, and keynote addresses given by the project's organizers. Participants discussed their expectations from EMS, and those who had taken part in the first Pilot Project were encouraged to share their ideas for its improvement.
The interactive nature of the workshop underlined everyone's hopes for the new project. Due to the first initiative's overwhelming success and local governments' growing interest in EMSs, the U.S. EPA saw the need for a second EMS initiative to test the results of the first, gather additional data and incorporate lessons learned for greater local impact.
Nine government entities participated in the first initiative. All experienced compelling environmental and economic benefits from its implementation. These included:
- better operational control in areas that impact the environment
- better understanding of the root causes of noncompliance
- improved operational efficiency and cost savings
- improved communication within the organization and with outside stakeholders and contractors/vendors
- better relationships with regulators and stakeholders.
Project participants also ran up against barriers to the initiative's full success. Most centered around management issues: the challenge of integrating new approaches into strongly bureaucratic organizations; insufficient leadership; lack of visibility and involvement from top management; organizational problems (e.g., time, employee buy-in); lack of public awareness, understanding and buy-in; and political uncertainty. They found that these issues could be solved through management leadership and management's increased understanding and involvement in the EMS process, building on existing organizational processes and procedures, selecting an Implementation Team that had cross-functional representation and support, and acceptance and involvement from employees across the entire organization. These are all key lessons learned that will prove helpful for the second round participants. (For additional case study information see The Final Report at www.getf.org/projects/muni.ctm.)
To assist the participants with their EMS efforts U.S. EPA once again selected the Global Environment & Technology Foundation (GETF) to lead the effort. GETF is providing materials, in-depth training, coaching, and on-site technical assistance to help the participants design and implement their EMSs. Having developed unique expertise in understanding the particular challenges of implementing an EMS in local governments, GETF is using the substantial range and depth of lessons learned and keys to success from the first pilot project to help participants in the second initiative understand and manage the implementation barriers common to this sector.
Before coming to the Scottsdale kickoff workshop, each participating organization selected a facility/operation or "fenceline" in which to implement their EMS.
| Public Entity | Fenceline | | City of Berkeley, CA | Solid Waste Management Division | | City of San Diego, CA | Refuse Disposal Division | | City of Detroit, MI | Department of Recreation & Public Lighting | | Florida Gulf Coast University - Fort Myers, FL | Solid Waste Activities and Services | | Port of Houston, TX | Container Terminal and the Central Maintenance Department | | Jefferson County , AL | General Services Department | | Little Blue Valley Sewer District - Independence, MO | Wastewater Treatment Facility -All operations | | Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District - Louisville, KY | Operations Division and Purchasing | | Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources - Madison, WI | Air Management Bureau | | Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District - Portland, OR | Maintenance Facilities | | King County Solid Waste District - Seattle, WA Entire Division | Eight Transfer Stations/ One Regional Landfill | | Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection - Lawrence, MA | Wall Experiment Station - Analytical Laboratory | | University of Massachusetts - Lowell, MA | Olney Science Building | | New Hampshire Depart of Transportation - Concord, NH | Bureau of Traffic |
During the two-year project, participants will attend five comprehensive workshops to receive training, materials, and technical assistance to help them accomplish EMS milestones in four implementation phases. Participants from the first EMS initiative for local governments will assist in the work-sessions and share their experiences and expertise with the group.
- Phase I: collecting baseline data; training an EMS implementation team; securing top management involvement; establishing communication with external stakeholders; conducting a gap analysis; developing process maps for their "fenceline" operations.
- Phase II: implementing an environmental policy; identifying significant environmental aspects; developing procedures for identifying legal and other requirements.
- Phase III: establishing environmental objectives and targets and management programs to achieve objectives; defining roles and responsibilities.
- Phase IV: monitoring established performance indicators to track progress toward achieving their objectives; ensuring proper checking and corrective action elements are in place such as internal audits and management review.
Monthly all-hands conference calls, individual biweekly technical assistance calls and on-site coaching form GETF experts, and a purpose-built Intranet site called VON, a Virtual Office Network on the Internet, ensure strong communication. The VON provides a user-friendly venue for long-distance sharing/auditing of information and documents and for uploading data and information efficiently. Participants submit quarterly reports tracking time and financial resources, benefits, barriers, and keys to success. The VON also tracks EMS design decisions that participants make at critical stages of EMS implementation. This data and information will be included in case studies and guidance material that will be useful for local government entities that are considering EMS implementation at a later time.
At the kick-off workshop participants introduced themselves, said a few words about their government entity, described their "fenceline" for the project, discussed what motivated them to apply an EMS, and discussed their environmental issues. EPA's Jim Horne presented an overview of the evolution of the EMS and the reasons that EPA has come to support its implementation. GETF's CEO Hank Habicht presented comments on how the EMS strategically benefits organizations and provides opportunities for public-private partnerships in sustainability efforts. GETF's Craig Ruberti and Faith Leavitt reviewed the two-year project schedule and provided a broad overview of EMS and introduced key EMS elements. They provided training sessions on selecting and training the implementation team; securing employee buy-in; process mapping; conducting a gap analysis; securing top management visibility, leadership, and involvement; establishing lines of communication with stakeholders; and data collection.
The workshop also benefited from the participation of Mark Young, Director of the City of Lowell, Massachusetts Wastewater Treatment Plant; Dennis Enriquez, Randy Grant, and Larry Person from the Environmental Division of the City of Scottsdale, Arizona who were all participants in the first EMS initiative. Each shared their own EMS experiences with the group providing valuable insight into the implementation process.
The project is being funded by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Offices of Water, Compliance, Air and Radiation, and Solid Waste and Emergency Response.
At the conference Jim Horne, the National Project Manager, from U.S. EPA's Office of Water expressed his enthusiasm for the new initiative: "The U.S. EPA team was extremely gratified by the level of interest for this second initiative shown by local governments and the level of sophistication of the applications. It is clear that public-sector organizations are rapidly becoming aware of the value of implementing EMSs and the value of working with U.S.EPA. We are delighted with the diverse range of organizations that were selected and expect great things from each of them."
Local Government Managers in the new initiative offer the following comments about their EMS participation:
"This will be an interesting two-year process; learning with and from other organizations who share our interest in protecting the environment while providing public services. We plan to convey all that we learn to our tenants; the city and county and other port authorities so that we can all do a better job as stewards of the environment." Houston Port Authority
"I'm very proud that King County's involvement will help lay the groundwork for other local governments. It challenges our organization to become a national leader in environmental management." King County, Washington
"We seek to improve environmental awareness; identify more ways to prevent pollution; and carry out programs that reduce or eliminate waste streams. A viable EMS will improve our performance through verifiable and understandable targets and measures; maintain mandatory environmental standards; and establish voluntary means to minimize waste." City of Berkeley, California
The next all-hands conference, hosted by the King County participants, is scheduled for September 18-20 in Seattle, Washington.
For more information on the Local Government EMS Initiative please contact:
Craig Ruberti (cruberti@getf.org) at (703) 750-6401 or
Faith Leavitt (fleavitt@earthvision.net) at (239) 489-1647 or
Visit (http://www.getf.org/muni.htm) for regular status reports on the project.
Global Environment & Technology Foundation
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