Make 2006 an Environmental Compliance Watershed Year for Delivering Value

I remember in first grade figuring out how old I would be in the year 2000.  I can vividly remember the classroom and talking about it with friends who have long since disappeared from my life. 

Well 2000 is 6 years behind us; that means I'm 6 years older than I calculated in first grade, and the environmental movement is close to 40 years old. 

By today's standards, the environmental movement is approaching middle age.  We've made progress, but we have so much more to do.  As we start the new year, here is my 5 point "to do" list for corporate environmental management and compliance in 2006:

1. Give your environmental staff what they need to do their jobs - liberal budgets, information technology, and organizational empowerment to prevent, reduce, recycle, reuse, and go beyond compliance.
2. Manage your environmental performance in terms of competitive advantage for your business.  Find ways to help your company better differentiate its products or services and reduce its cost of operations.  Do this and you'll find your staff and budget increasing, not decreasing.
3. Stop talking about climate change and start acting - first step, inventory your worldwide greenhouse gas emissions and identify the risks & liabilities they pose to your business and the markets in which you operate.
4. Implement environmental management systems the enable your organization to shift from reactive compliance management to pro-active compliance assurance, and consequently changing from low value issue resolution to high value issue prevention.
5. Make your environmental consultant your long-term trusted advisor - stop turning over your consultants every project or budget year; find a consulting firm committed to knowing your organization and capable of delivering value day in and day out in a number of key environmental disciplines; nurture them, feed them, and form a long-lasting relationship; and remember to pay them well because it's true that you get what you pay for (do you really want an unknown, untested, low bidder performing your work?).

Read more about environmental compliance for air, water, and waste or see a live web seminar on water quality / NPDES compliance on February 23 by Southern Company.

by
Doug Hatler, CHMM
DHatler@enviance.com