Going Universal - VPPPA Region I Chapter

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measurements and to identify behavioral
changes necessary to nurture the desired
environmental culture.
The intent of this workshop is to
demonstrate how safety and health
professionals can collaborate with
environmental professionals to expand the
concept of VPP to develop a comprehensive
risk management system. The benefit
of a comprehensive system is that it will
ensure that the critical system components
(safety, environment, occupational health,
quality, cost, productivity and profit) are
visible in the day-to-day operations of the
organization. This management system
can be developed using the core elements
of VPP, which are: management leadership
and employee involvement; worksite
analysis; hazard prevention and control;
and safety and health training. As with VPP,
this concept cannot be successful without
total commitment from management as
well as employees. Management must
demonstrate this commitment by defining
environmental performance goals,
designating appropriate employees with
the responsibility to meet those goals and
by providing the necessary resources to
support progress toward those goals.
For example, in response to Executive
Order 13514, organization leadership
establishes a goal to reduce the production
of Green House Gases by 10 percent
over the next five years. This will require
leadership to designate a qualified
individual to identify areas for reduction
and provide the required labor to complete
this effort. The responsible individual must
develop a team of employees at the various
levels of the organization to: (1) inventory
Greenhouse Gas emission sources; (2)
identify areas for reduction and develop
mitigation strategies; and (3) work with
production personnel to implement
process improvements to obtain those
reductions. This example extends beyond
maintaining compliance. It suggests a
program that actively seeks to achieve
some level of environmental excellence
through process improvements. This is
accomplished by involving employees at
all levels of responsibility.
As this behavior is propagated, it will
ultimately result in an organizational
culture in which every employee looks
for and recognizes environmental
opportunities. Employees must actively
participate in this process to ensure that the
recommended improvements are consistent
with their job tasks and that safety
considerations are taken into account.
Employees performing the job tasks on a
day-to-day basis are a key component to
worksite analysis because they “see how
the job is actually completed” and can
elaborate on how potential environmental
process improvements could impact their
daily tasks.
This leads to hazard prevention and
control because when considering
potential opportunities to improve
environmental performance, the ability
of the employee to complete their job in
a safe and efficient manner must also be
considered. For example, methyl ethyl
ketone was used for years to remove
specialty coatings from aircraft radomes.
An alternative solvent that contained no
volatile organic compounds or hazardous
air pollutants was tested and validated
for use in the process. However, the new
solvent required shop personnel to spend
much more time scraping and physically
stripping the coatings from the radomes.
This led to a decrease in throughput and
increase in repetitive task injuries, resulting
in productivity and ergonomic issues. The
new solvent process was abandoned and
methyl ethyl ketone was re-instated as the
preferred coating removal process. This
example demonstrates the importance
of integrating all aspects of the business
due to the significAnt oVerlAP
thAt exists between enVironment,
sAfety And occuPAtionAl heAlth,
it is criticAl to Address All three
AreAs when executing A ProJect.
(safety, environment, quality, cost,
productivity and profit). One aspect cannot
be compromised to achieve improvements
elsewhere.
Finally, employees at all levels of the
organization must be provided with
the necessary training to educate them
on environmental performance metrics
so that they are able to identify areas
for improvement within their daily job
tasks. It is critical to the continuous
improvement of the system that employees
are able to recognize areas to increase
environmental performance so that
information is passed on to leadership.
Environmental training is extremely
important, because environmental issues
and areas for improvement are not always
as transparent to shop-level employees as
are apparent safety issues. For example,
a near miss can make an employee aware
of an apparent safety hazard, but that
same employee might not recognize that
conserving energy by turning off a light
switch will lead to a reduction in reported
Scope 2 Green House Gas emissions.
Safety and health professionals should
walk away from this workshop with an
understanding that the framework used
to progress their organization toward
VPP Star status can be utilized to drive
excellence in environmental performance.
The workshop intends to provide ESOH
professionals with the ability to identify
leading and lagging indicators that can be
used to evaluate their organizations’ culture
in regards to environmental performance,
so that it can be evaluated against the other
system components (safety, environment,
quality, cost, productivity and profit). This
will assist them in managing all components
concurrently and/or working as a team with
their various counterparts in the organization
to achieve continuous improvement with
each critical system component. H
* this workshop will be held tuesday, August 24,
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m., and will be presented by
scot bryant, environmental Programs director,
concurrent technologies corporation, and
Jeffrey Anderson, director of safety services,
concurrent technologies corporation.
leARN mORe At the 2010 CONfeReNCe
the leAder >> www.VPPPA.org 37