Enrolling Municipalities in Environmental Performance

Elizabeth Frisch, CEO Culture Technologies, Inc.Director of Development, A Nurtured World

(512) 656.7518

October 29, 2008

NEPT Conference, Seattle WA

About A Nurtured World & Culture Technologies

About us…

A Nurtured World

• Educational and research non-profit founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas

• Help individuals reduce their environmental impact, save money, and enhance satisfaction

• Build effectiveness of organizations and businesses in reducing environmental impacts

Culture Technologies

• Management consulting firm founded in 2002

• Help organizations develop programs that deliver environmental performance and shift organizational culture

• Training, coaching and conflict resolution on environmental issues

Our Programs

A Nurtured World• Consumer Environmental Education • Curricula Development for

Secondary School Teachers– Science, Math, and English

Language Arts• Rays of Hope

– Providing home energy and water efficiency upgrades and solar installations for low income families

• Training and capacity building for state, federal, and local programs in implementing effective consumer and business environmental programs

Culture Technologies

• Executive, organizational and personnel coaching

• Coached EMS implementation

• Performance program development

• NEPT/ISO/EHS auditing• EMS/EHS Training

(Virtual/Face-to-face)

Types of Organizations Assisted

A Nurtured World

• NASA Johnson Space Center• Advanced Micro Devices• Texas Army National Guard• Fort Hood Family Housing• City of Dallas• Austin Energy• Lower Colorado River Authority• Intel• Train-the-trainers for Texas and

Arkansas teachers• University of Texas at Austin• Meals on Wheels and More• Leadership Austin

Culture Technologies• Toyota and their OSS

• The Dallas Cowboys

• US Green Building Council

• USEPA, TCEQ, ODEQ, ADEQ, etc.

• Advanced Micro Devices

• Southwest Research Institute

• Fort Bliss Military Installation

• Highmount E&P

• Red Robin Restaurants

• City of Austin, City of Garland and over two dozen other municipalities

Goals for Today

• Introduce how the TCEQ/USEPA program was developed

• Discuss our successes and failures with local governments and gaining environmental footprint reduction from our participants

• What you can do to replicate the successes and avoid the failures ;o)

The Coached EMS Implementation Project with

Local Governments

Goal: Implement an EMS and join the Clean Texas Program

• Targeted municipalities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area due to non-attainment status of region and pervasive environmental issues coupled with exploding growth

• Leveraged grant funding from the USEPA to fund contractor support and minimize cost to local governments participating

• Used VREMS model as a baseline but adapted to reduce total budget required to implement

• Requested entities budget $7,500-10K for FY2009. No funding required up front

• Started with 12 municipalities (including the Dallas Cowboys) and finished with 11 entities

Bond Debt& Taxes

RisingComplianceCosts

CollectionSystemCapacity

BusinessGrowth

ReducedBudgets

LandfillCapacity

WaterAvailability

RisingLaborCosts

RisingEnergyCosts

PopulationGrowth

Wastewater Treatment Capacity

Air Quality

What are local governments facing?

WHAT ARE THE ENVIRONMENTAL HOT POINTS FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS?

Storm waterSanitary Sewer OverflowsAir QualityUtility Costs

How to enroll local governments

Start at the top!

Mayors, City Managers and City Councils were targeted

• Conducted a one-day local roll-out• Conducted a series of briefings scheduled based on

personal invitations from the TCEQ Regional Director and with support of Regional USEPA staff.

• Met them on their turf in times convenient to them• Requested 30 – 45 minutes of their time• Focused on the cost savings – actual case studies,

building a livable community, and improved relationships with regulators (stories of those who didn’t), community and businesses

• De-mystified EMS

Copyright 2002-2006 Culture Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.Save money

Sustain resources

© 2007 All Rights Reserved. Culture Technologies, Inc.

Copyright 2002-2008 Culture Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Environmental ManagementSystems

The three “legs” of a Performance-based EMS

Co

ntro

l Risk/L

iabilities

En

sure

Co

mp

lianc

e

Co

nserve reso

urces

Resources = Time, $$$$’s, and materials/expendables (fuel, paper, water, etc.)

Copyright 2002-2008 Culture Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

EMS

Ensure Compliance ($)

Why EMS for Local Governments?

Control Risk ($$)

Conserve ResourcesReduce Impacts ($$$)

WHY DO EMS WORK FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENTS?

Where you spend your money is where you have the most environmental impact…Reduce spending, impact reductions follow.

Copyright 2002-2006 Culture Technologies, Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

Provided case Studies based on their Operations

• SavingsSavings: : $392,000/yr$392,000/yr– Improved bond rating, preventative Improved bond rating, preventative

maintenance, fuel reduction, new maintenance, fuel reduction, new technologies, hauling efficienciestechnologies, hauling efficiencies

Charleston Water System

Serves 400,000 customers)

Improved bond rating from AA- to AA!

Meet 95% of strategic goals

Results

• Approximately 20 cities were targeted and 12 enrolled in the program

• Participants surveyed after said the factors most influencing their manager’s willingness to join:– #1 COST SAVINGS– SHARED FUNDING BY TCEQ/USEPA, i.e. COST

OUT OF POCKET WAS MINIMAL– POLITICAL GOODWILL– COMPLIANCE

What to focus on first?

Cost Savings

Where there is cost savings, there is typically environmental footprint reduction

How to get cost savings?

• All cities were asked to get a hold of their budgets• Selected budget areas where reductions were

needed• Set goals/targets/programs to deliver those

reductions and established measurables for cost and environmental footprint reduction

• Had participants present these to management for their approval and support

How to get them started?

• Established mentor cities (had already implemented an EMS) to answer questions and share 100% of their written documentation

• Found all guidebooks based on their operations (PEER Center, EPA, etc.)

• Provided onsite reviews to help them identify all of their issues

• Created shared homework site where the cities could see what other cities were doing and use best practices

How do you enroll the individual?

• Supported them in getting buy-in from all levels of the organization

• How to involve and empower employees• Consumer conservation opportunities• Making connections between the environment

and their personal lives• Maintaining and sustaining interest over time

So that’s it right?

Resistance, Apathy, Bureaucracy

© 2007 All Rights Reserved. Nurtured World, Inc.

Behavior/Action

Knowledge

Does Knowledge Change Behavior?

?Inquiry

Information

Why do soft skills matter?

• Implementing any environmental footprint reduction involves people

• Culture (People) resists change• If we only do what is feasible and reasonable what do we

get?• 90% of change efforts fail to take hold permanently• Most implementers are environmental personnel who

have no authority or power (on paper) to make the projects happen

© 2007 All Rights Reserved. Culture Technologies, Inc.

Core Team Members were Trained to Lead Change Efforts

• The Power of Views• Leadership without Titles• How to have an enrollment conversation and make requests• The 60-second EMS conversation• The Meaning of Failure• Right & Wrong vs. Working & Not-Working• The Three-Meeting Phenomena• The 7 Languages of Transformation• Creating a High Performance Organization• Creating Culture Through Language

© 2007 All Rights Reserved. Culture Technologies, Inc.

RESULTS OF THE EFFORTS

DECEMBER 2007-SEPTEMBER 2008

Negative Results

• Decision was made for cost savings to have city manager quarterly calls over the phone.– Not all calls were completed, Incredibly hard to get

scheduled, More difficult to sustain report• Cities did not realize multiple sites would be additional costs

(i.e. $7,500 for 3rd party per site sometimes)• Homework was always late from most cities and significant

phone and email follow-up was required to keep it moving• Work days were poorly attended – Should have made them

mandatory like class days• Only had 9 mos. & needed 12 mos. to give cities more time.

Positive Results

• 11/12 organizations finished the program and applied for Clean Texas Bronze (Annual Reporting Req’d)

• All cities are on track to get their 3rd party review and apply for Clean Texas Silver, Gold, or Platinum between December 2008 and May 2009.

• Came up with unique way to control 3rd party audit results by having other city’s auditors support 1 EMS-LA

• Management support for the effort remains strong in 10/11 organizations

• All cities set cost savings goals that would also yield impact reduction and are implementing the programs

Costs?

• ~$80K of grant funding covered 12 cities for mos program (Framework could handle more cities)– Included team website– Coached implementation– Onsite support– Eight classroom days over 1 year– Conference calls with city managers

• Cities committed $7,500 per site for a 3rd party audit of the EMS for FY 2009.

Questions/Feedback?elizabeth@nurturedworld.org / elizabeth@culturetechnologies.com

(512) 656-7518

www.nurturedworld.org / www.culturetechnologies.com