In addition, educational opportunities such as work-shops and site visits were provided to some 2,500 Pennsylvanians. The GreenWorks for Pennsylvania television show, produced by the Environmental Fund for Pennsylvania and DEP, won the 1998 Council of State Governments Innovations Award for creatively delivering a pollution prevention, environmental stewardship message to the general public by showing what people all over Pennsylvania are doing to protect the environment. Since DEP first introduced Strategic Environmental Management as an effective method to create a positive climate for businesses, communities and individuals, DEP staff have worked directly with local community interests to encourage Pennsylvania' s corporate community to take the zero emissions path, integrating environmental management objectives into overall strategic goals to improve efficiency and gain a competitive edge. The goal of zero emissions prompts businesses to make an honest commitment to pollution prevention at its source by continuously assessing the environmental aspects of their business practices. When zero emissions and strategic environmental management are embraced, regulatory compliance is no longer a problem and maximum savings and flexibility are attained.
Employers can profitably meet or exceed environmental compliance threshold requirements.
Pennsylvania won another 1998 Council of State Governments Innovations Award, along with 13 other states, for its involvement in the Multi-State Working Group on Environmental Management Systems. These states are working to evaluate the potential increase in the environmental and economic performance of environmental management systems based on ISO 14001, one of several internationally recognized strategic environmental management tools. The working group has now completed the development of a performance metrics protocol to guide the collection of data from member-state pilot projects. This new technology allows DEP to deliver almost any environmental training and pollution prevention workshop right to the desktop computer of anyone with Internet access in Pennsylvania or around the world.