Director's Column

From the Source - Summer 1998

by G. Robert Kerr

One of the unique things about pollution prevention is that companies which practice it often find themselves actually going beyond their compliance requirements and therefore achieving superior environmental results. A major task of this Division is development of tools and programs which can assist industries and businesses as they reach for environmental achievements beyond compliance. This newsletter issue focuses on a number of these different programs and tools.

As P²AD has done in the past, we asked for outside input in developing our "beyond compliance" programs. This past summer the Georgia Environmental Partnership sponsored a stakeholders retreat in order to explore ideas for upcoming divisional efforts in industrial sustainability and pollution prevention. We very much appreciate the time and contributions of all the retreat attendees. The article on page one provides more details regarding the conclusions of the retreat.

Featured on the front page (and listed below) are the 1998 Governor's award winners. Each of these organizations carried out a specific pollution prevention project, which is detailed in the article. We salute the awardees, and we look forward to their continuing achievements in moving their operations beyond compliance. The case study for this issue describes how one of our clients, Blue Circle Aggregates, is implementing a beyond compliance tool, an environmental management system (EMS). Included in the article are some of the specific benefits that Blue Circle has already realized as a result of EMS implementation.

Another specific tool for moving beyond compliance, full cost accounting, is featured on pages 4 and 5. P²AD is in the process of producing a comprehensive guide to help industry use full cost accounting techniques. As discussed on page 8, we will also be sponsoring a workshop on this subject in late March 1999.

We hope this issue will help whet your interest to learn more about ways to move beyond compliance in your business. Give us a call - we look forward to assisting you!