Workshop: Sustaining Sustainability ~ Organizational Assessments & Systems

Sustaining Sustainability: Organizational Assessments & Systems

Instructor: Dorothy Atwood with the Zero Waste Alliance and EPA's Local Resource Center representative for environmental management systems (Portland, OR)

This course meets on-line on Wednesdays (September 8, 15, 22, 29) at 12:00PM Pacific Time for 60-90 minutes.

Early Bird pricing extended through September 1, 2010 and is in effect up to one week before the first online webinar is scheduled.  

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:
Once initial sustainability projects have been completed, organizations are often at a loss as to how to maintain newly acquired practices and continue to move their sustainability efforts forward. 

Management systems are the key to ongoing progress. This course will walk you through the creation of such a system to fit your needs. 

A SMS (sustainability management system) allows for

• systematic internal review
• monitoring 
• corrective actions for continual improvement

Discover practical methods to solidify and advance sustainability efforts.  Learn best practices. Apply proven management system tools and practices.  Customize a sustainability management system to fit your organization's needs.

You don't need a third-party certified ISO 14001 management system to benefit from the Plan-Do-Check-Act framework.  With an emphasis on using the Plan-Do-Check-Act framework, learn what level of sophistication works best for you and what elements to add as your system matures. 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
The Workshop will help you answer the following questions for your own sustainability program:

• How do we move from ad hoc projects to an integrated program?
• How do we go from a sustainability plan to a living sustainability system that is part of our core business?
• How do we assess where we are and set priorities?
• How often should we review goals, projects and the program as a whole?
• How many people should be involved?
• Do we have training, communication, and support systems in place for our program?
• How can we keep the program alive if a key champion leaves?

Learn how to maintain newly acquired sustainability practices to move your efforts forward.  Customize a sustainable management system (SMS) to fit your organization’s needs.  Explore SMS tools for systematic internal review, monitoring and corrective actions for continual improvement.   Discover what level of sophistication works best and what elements to add, as your system matures.   You don’t need a third-party certified ISO 14001 management system to benefit from the Plan-Do-Check-Act framework.   Apply proven management system tools and best practices to solidify and advance sustainability efforts. 

You will complete the course having learned practical methods to solidify and advance sustainability efforts by applying proven management system tools and practices. 

INSTRUCTOR BIO:

Dorothy Fisher Atwood has over 25 years of environmental consulting experience with the last ten years focused management systems implementation for private and public organizations.  She is an independent consultant and also serves as the Management Systems program manager for Zero Waste Alliance (ZWA), a Portland-based non-profit organization.  ZWA is one of the eleven US Environmental Protection Agency-designated Local Resource Centers in their PEER center of management system excellence.  Her work includes development of implementation tools and procedures, training, and sustainability and environmental management system (including ISO 14001) integration into core business systems.  

Ms Atwood is an instructor for the University of Oregon's Sustainability Leadership Workshop Series and has co-authored two booklets on management systems: Developing Effective Systems for Managing Sustainability and Embedding Sustainability into Your EMS, which are part of the Axis Performance Sustainability Series.