In this section, the focus turns from the past and present to the potential future. The question moves from what has been to what can be. What kinds of sector-based policies, programs and resources could help state and local environmental protection co-implementers carry out their responsibilities more effectively and efficiently?
On the basis of suggestions from co-implementers, and extrapolations from recent pilot programs, the following potential developments have been identified:
Each of these possibilities is discussed briefly below.
Learning to deal with new environmental regulations is a fact of life for environmental co-implementers and the regulated community alike. Among the new regulations which will be phased in over the next few years are:
to name just a few.
At present, a targeted sector-specific compliance assistance effort undertaken by state or local government in advance of new rules has been the exception, rather than the rule. Ideally, a local government unit would have the ability to carry out a proactive compliance assistance program to prepare affected sectors for new regulatory conditions, at least for sectors which are concentrated in that locality.
What would it take to put programs of this type within the reach of most local government units? Much of the necessary preparation could be carried out on a national level, such as the creation of plain-language informational material and technical resources. National coordinators could also serve as resources for local governments interested in carrying out regulatory awareness programs in their areas. The demands on such a program would be formidable. Windows of opportunity would be narrow, since a proactive awareness program would have to be carried out between the final adoption of a rule and its taking effect. But the dividends, in terms of increased compliance rates, and industry good will, could be considerable.
Some day, industry will come to view the costs of compliance with environmental regulations as investments which will ultimately return dividends in the form of better economic performance over the long run. Today, it is a hard sell.
It is interesting to compare the history of the quality movement in industry, culminating in the ISO 9000 standards, with the environmental movement and ISO 14000. In the 1970s, the prevailing opinion in manufacturing would have considered substantial investment in product quality beyond the demands of the market to be either a bid for a relatively minor upscale niche, or the high road to bankruptcy. The rise of Toyota and the government bailout of Chrysler, the predominance of Sony and the near-death experience of American electronics manufacturing, and similar stories in the 1980s provided the wake-up call. Investment in quality came to be viewed as sound business strategy, and the key to competitiveness.
Investment in environmental quality beyond the demands of regulators would have seemed equally indefensible before the days of Love Canal, public outrage, and Superfund. With the realization of just how costly environmental liability could be came an acceptance of environmental goals as an essential element of corporate policy, and corporate culture. But there remains an important difference when investments in product quality are weighed against investments in environmental performance. Investments in quality "feel" voluntary, undertaken for rational business purposes. Quality sells. Quality products command a higher price, and in these affluent days capture more of the market. The analogous driver for environmental investment is avoided liability, and the payback is indirect. Environmental investment feels imposed. Perhaps that is why companies that flocked to the ISO 9000 banner are only slowly adopting ISO 14000, dragging a reluctant supply chain with them.
A premise underlying voluntary "beyond compliance" programs is that industry is likely to make more progress more efficiently if it is responding as it chooses to program incentives than if it is complying with a set of restrictions. Most people, both within and outside industry, would agree with the premise. The challenge is to create program incentives powerful enough to outweigh the perception that investment in environmental improvement does not offer a commensurate return.
For co-implementers, voluntary programs offer an exceptional opportunity
Several of the co-implementers who provided input for this document related very positive experiences with voluntary programs with a variety of industry sectors in their communities, and suggested that such programs represent a promising growth area for future sector-based programs.
A number of voluntary programs have been piloted in the past several years. In evaluating the potential for future voluntary programs, it would be useful to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of the experiences gained in these pilot efforts. Until such an evaluation becomes available, general impressions and intuitions will have to suffice. An observation with specific relevance for co-implementers is offered below.
Voluntary programs can be designed primarily around a sector-based, or primarily around a facility-based approach. In the former approach, the emphasis is on involving as many individual companies or sites as possible. In the latter approach, the emphasis is on setting goals most appropriate for a particular facility and the priorities of its community. [examples - SGP as paradigm for sector-based, XL for facility-based]
There is a natural progression which might be expected to apply to voluntary programs. When breaking the ice with a new industry sector, or when involving a locality for the first time, it might make sense to begin with a facility-based effort. Successes can then be generalized to other facilities most efficiently with a sector-based approach.
This general pattern (piloting on a facility basis, and as part of the pilot, creating templates that can be generalized to other facilities in the sector through sector-based programs) will occur in conjunction with other possible programs suggested below. But in light of the remarks introducing this section, the following consideration may be of interest to co-implementers.
The most effective incentive for industry participation in a voluntary program would be a clear demonstration that there are economic benefits for participating. (The other commonly cited factor for industry participation in voluntary programs, the need to overcome distrust, can actually cut both ways: a distrusted regulator summoning industry to a "voluntary" meeting is likely to get a good turnout, at least initially. But this scenario is not likely to stimulate enthusiasm and creativity.) Successful pilot programs can provide evidence for economic benefits. But facility-based and sector-based programs will provide two different kinds of evidence. Facility-based programs will yield evidence in the form of case studies. To the extent that one facility in a particular sector is similar to another, such studies can be very convincing. However, in sectors where facilities tend to have unique characteristics, quantitative and statistically valid survey data may carry more weight. An example of the latter may be found in the "Benchmarking Metal Finishing" study carried out in conjunction with the Metal Finishing Strategic Goals Program, which found that top environmental performers, despite having higher unit costs for items such as wastewater and sludge disposal and electricity usage, nevertheless tended to spend significantly less overall on environment-related expenses (as a percentage of overall sales) than did lower ranked competitors.
An environmental management system (EMS) is inherently a facility-based tool. To be specific enough to be useful, an EMS must be tuned, not only to the activities that an organization carries out, but to its particular array of business processes, its management structure, and the external constraints (regulations, restrictions, reporting requirements) within which it operates.
It is not surprising that recent facility-based programs typically contain an EMS as a central feature (see, for example, the Performance Track program). But sector-based programs can also involve EMS development, in the form of sector-specific EMS templates. These are documents that fall between the broad generality of, for example, the ISO 14000 standards, which are meant to apply to virtually any facility, and an EMS specific to one particular facility. An EMS template for a given sector might contain such resources as checklists of items relevant to processes commonly carried out by companies in the sector. The template can be used as the basis for facility-specific EMSs, with each facility selecting those items relevant to its own operations.
The creation of EMS templates might appear to be more suitable for a national program than programs involving state and local government co-implementers. However, the process of creating a successful sector-specific EMS templates may well include a stage of development in which co-implementers have as important role to play. EMS templates are likely to be generalizations based on facility-specific input. The core of the template will need input from a range of facilities. It will be essential to generate the kind of interchange among industry participants which elicits the insights and considerations that a template must capture.
Collaboration in industry tends to work best as a contact sport. Face-to-face meetings tend to be the best settings for that kind of interchange. And a series of two or three meetings will usually result in a better product than would emerge from a single meeting. Logistically, the ideal situation for a program of this type would be a a location where many companies in a sector are concentrated. Co-implementers may have an interest in organizing EMS template programs for sectors which are heavily represented in their locations.
Just as the concentration of a sector in a particular region can influence the economic development of the region, the cumulative environmental impact of the sector can drive the environmental agenda of the community. Several co-implementers referred to programs in their areas that would bring industry and other stakeholders together on a regular basis. The focus of these multistakeholder groups might be planning, or addressing a specific community problem, or working on a common project.
One of the premises of this type of collaborative action is that every interest be fairly represented at the table. The participation of industry on a sector basis supports this principle. The multistakeholder character of several sector-based programs that have been developed over the past few years (such as the Common Sense Initiative) has provided many co-implementer participants valuable experience in bringing a broad spectrum of community opinion together. Future sector-based programs, in sectors not yet explored, offer an opportunity to extend the multistakeholder approach to other localities.
Sector-based programs and trade organizations are a natural fit. Both co-implementers and trade organizations can benefit from joint programs. Co-implementers can bring the promise of regulatory flexibility, as well as recognition and improved community relations. Trade organizations can provide credibility and the presumption of trust which can be critical in bringing skeptical companies out to meetings and training sessions.
National programs can provide incentives for co-implementers and trade organizations to explore options for cooperative efforts. Sector-based programs can be designed explicitly to promote such partnerships on a state and local level.
Sector-based assistance, particularly pollution prevention assistance and some aspects of compliance assistance, requires technical familiarity with the materials and processes associated with each sector's operations. If a locality contains a concentration of facilities in a particular sector, the local government units serving that locality may well have on staff individuals with technical expertise in that sector. But for sectors which are only sparsely represented in that locality, it would be unrealistic to expect a local government unit to have expertise on staff.
Most local government units must deal with many sparsely represented sectors, as well as those few which may be concentrated in their regions. In dealing with those sectors for which it would not make sense to develop on-staff expertise, it would be useful for them to have access to individuals in local government units in other areas who understand the technical constraints from a regulatory point of view. The problem is to be able to find them conveniently when the need arises.
It might be very useful to set up and maintain a contact list of state and local government sector experts, accessible on a website. The creation of such a resource would be an excellent opportunity to establish a sector-based program that stands a good chance of improving the quality of environmental implementation for a wide variety of local government units.
It should be noted that such resources are typically easier to set up than to maintain. Several ongoing EPA programs are developing ways to deal with the contacts maintenance problem, and may represent fruitful sources for collaboration, if a program of this type is implemented for local governments. They include the sector-specific Compliance Assistance Centers program (administered by the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance), and the Pollution Prevention Resource Exchange (administered by the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics).
In all of the interactions with state and local government co-implementers that provided input for this document, there was a curious gap. No one mentioned using the resources or support of an organization, analogous to an industry trade or professional organization, when they themselves sought assistance in their work. This is in striking contrast to a typical response from individuals in industry, who generally mention their trade or professional organizations near the top of their own personal list of key resources for dealing with environmental issues. There seems to be no organization currently supporting state or local government officials specifically in their roles as co-implementers.
It could be that our sample set, a few dozen individuals out of the literally hundreds of thousands of individuals in state and local government units throughout the country, was simply not large enough. On the other hand, our contacts include a disproportionate percentage of those very individuals who are most aware of environmental implementation issues and most active in programs dealing with such issues. If an existing organization were a pre-eminent source of support, we would have expected someone in our sample set to have said so.
To existing organizations, this may indicate an opportunity to provide a benefit to their membership which is not currently being provided elsewhere. There are certainly organizations and resources available to local government staff providing environmental information and support. (A list of such organizations appears at http://www.epa.gov/ocirpage/statelocal/org.htm . Another resource, with considerable environmental information pertaining to local government, can be found at the Local Government Environmental Assistance Network (LGEAN), at http://www.lgean.org/.) The fact that none of the co-implementers contributing to this investigation referred to any of the organizations listed at these sites suggests that, at the very least, it would be worth calling attention to the resources already available. It may also indicate an opportunity for an organization specifically devoted to the implementation role. One of the co-implementers suggested that it would be useful for EPA to have an implementation sector liaison on staff, similar to the liaison that was established for the iron and steel industry as an outcome of the Common Sense Initiative in that sector.
Creating a new independent organization, or providing a co-implementation specialist within an existing organization, would represent alternative ways of fulfilling the need for a professional resource for co-implementers.