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Background

• We are in a period of exponential worldwide population growth (2X since 1960); we are continuing to pollute our environment; we are using resources at ever increasing rates; water shortages are happening worldwide; we have increased CO2 in our atmosphere by 30% since the industrial age began and we have affected the protective ozone layer in the atmosphere.
• Future generations will have fewer resources, more pollution and will have to compete with many more people.
• The potential for our grandchildren to live good lives is diminishing.
• We owe it to our descendants to begin the long journey to true sustainability now.
• This will be recorded as an historic moment in time and we are all part of it.

The Sustainability Vision

Sustainability Frameworks and Support

There are several frameworks for defining and measuring working toward sustainability. A few of them are listed below. Environmental management systems can provide the structure of top management strategic involvement, goal setting and accomplishment to allow an organization to work effectively toward becoming sustainable.

• The Natural Step
  • Defines sustainability in four system conditions
  • Provides training for a shared mental model for effective teamwork
• Ecological Footprint
  • Provides an easily understood conceptual understanding of our individual impacts
• Conservation Economy:
  • Tackles the difficult task of describing a sustainable society
  • The site that documents best practices for social, economic and environmental practices
• Natural Capitalism
  • Provides four key strategies to work toward becoming more sustainable
• CERES Principles
  • 10 criteria to assess the environmental performance of companies
  • Created in response to the Exxon Valdez disaster
• Bellagio Principles
  • 10 principles to guide an organization to work toward sustainability
• Sustainable Process Index
  • Four criteria for sustainability applied to processes, products and regions considering human mass, natural and energy flows
• Environmental Sustainability Index
  • Criteria to measure national progress towards environmental sustainability
• USEPA Sustainable Industry Program
  • This site helps industry sectors improve environmental performance.
• Zero Waste
  • A vision of a future when our society models nature's waste free cyclical systems
  • Zero Waste supports sustainability by reducing extraction from, and eliminating waste to nature, improving economic efficiency and making more resources available to all

What is needed?

To achieve sustainability, indicators of the visionary sustainable condition must be chosen. These indicators can then be used to measure and report progress. The indicators typically fall into the following three categories.

• Financial Accountability
  • Clear standards
  • GAAP, Annual Financial Reports
• Environmental Accountability
  • Measurement & reporting standards are under development
  • Toxic Release Inventory, Global Reporting Initiative emerging
• Social and Ethical Accountability
  • No measurement or reporting standards today
  • Vast cultural differences globally

EMSs and Sustainability

Environmental management systems provide a structure for management to integrate an effective sustainability program into regular business procedures. Sustainability provides direction for an EMS.  For more information on creating a vision and integrating sustainability into an EMS, click here for an agenda and presentations from the July 18, 2003 “Reaching the Vision – Using your EMS to Achieve Long-term Goals” workshop.

The California Environmental Protection Agency (http://www.calepa.ca.gov/EMS) has recently released a report on their Cal/EPA EMS Pilot Project titled:  "Environmental Management and Sustainability Program Innovation Initiative Report on the Cal/EPA Environmental Management System Project".  It is the result of a multi-year study of EMS effectiveness. The report and profiles of the companies involved are available at http://www.calepa.ca.gov/EMS/Publications/2003/LegReport/. 

The project found that EMSs can be an important tool in better protecting the environment.  The pilot project showed the value of taking a systems approach to protecting and restoring the planet.  In practice it is establishing values, creating a vision of a future wherein the values are fulfilled, setting stretch goals, measuring progress toward those goals, reviewing practices and progress, and making changes that will create desired results.  This practice can also be applied to our personal lives.  This is the work that we must all do in order to create a sustainable world.

Benefits

Companies are working toward sustainability for real, valid reasons including the following:

• Increased sales, market share & profits
• Competitive advantage
• Brand recognition; market and public perception
• Enhanced stock value
• Reduced costs; Energy savings and other efficiencies
• Avoiding regulations and disposal costs
• Avoiding future liability
• Attraction & retention of valued employees
• Increased worker commitment and productivity
• Values or beliefs; It's the ethical thing to do

Sustainability and Public Agencies

Governments make provide stewardship for our environment by making regulations and other requirements. This has greatly reduced some of the pollution problems of prior decades. Now we have an even greater challenge, that of achieving a balance of reducing the rate of pollution to that which the earth's systems can handle and reducing the effects of prior pollution.

Governments are recommending EMSs to business and industry as a means to help meet and move beyond regulatory requirements. Public agencies should "walk the talk" and take on sustainability strategies to show the way to others.