What is an Environmental Management System (EMS)? Full compliance with local, state, and federal environmental laws, while necessary and important, will still expose the natural environment to unacceptably high levels of risk and harm. An EMS is a tool to help identify and evaluate ALL of its environmental risks, including those not regulated by laws. An EMS is a planned approach to the management of environmental pressures that requires continuous environmental improvement. It typically encompasses policy, planning, implementation and operation, checking and corrective action and management review. As developed for this project, the EMS is a systematic approach to three tasks: To catalogue all environmental and resource pressures in Silicon Valley To determine the most significant of the pressures To take concerted action on significant pressures. Through the regional EMS, we intend to help decision makers in the Valley make better decisions about responding to the significant environmental and natural resource risks, impacts, and threats associated with economic activity in the region. We refer to these as "pressures" in the project documents you will read here. Using the EMS, we hope that stakeholders in the Silicon Valley environment, who are all contributors to, and beneficiaries of, the unique blend of natural beauty and intellectual capital that is the Valley, can collaborate to achieve higher levels of ecological protection. An EMS is also a powerful change agent. Properly implemented, an EMS can educate, inspire, propagate integrity and trust, and lay the foundation for sustainability. It is in this spirit that the Sustainable Silicon Valley partnership is pursing the EMS. Why is this significant? The Silicon Valley EMS will allow private and public sector organizations to align their EMSs with a groundbreaking regional EMS approach for the Silicon Valley. We intend to create a framework within which, eventually, businesses, governments and other institutions in the Valley will work towards protection, enhancement, and restoration in targeted areas of environmental health and resource use. What is the scope of EMS? The EMS encompasses environmental and resource pressures, while taking into account related economic and social issues, within the portions of San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz Counties known as Silicon Valley. The geographic boundaries of the EMS include San Mateo and Santa Clara, southern Alameda and western Santa Cruz Counties. The economic and social boundaries of the EMS include the collective environmental consequences of the operations of private sector business operations (including headquarters, manufacturing, and other for-profit enterprises, including academic institutions) and public sector (city, county, regional, and state agencies, including joint powers authorities) organizations in the region. The EMS encompasses business and public sector processes and the products, services and wastes they produce, as well as the ecological efficiency of the material, human and other resources used in those processes. The EMS does not encompass the discrete operations of any individual private or public sector organization. Rather, it encompasses environmental risks, impacts, and other issues resulting from the operations of all these organizations, grouped into broad categories. What is the initial focus? Through the regional EMS approach, energy and water usage have been identified as the first two significant environmental issues to be addressed by the SSV Initiative. What targets have been set? Because carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions can be viewed as representative of energy efficiency and effectiveness (the relative carbon intensity of fuels), a CO2 emission reduction goal has been established to reflect reductions in energy usage. In April 2003, California EPA Secretary Winston Hickox publicly announced that SSV Project participants have established a Valley-wide goal of reducing CO2 emissions 20% below 1990 levels by 2010. In 1990, 13.42 million tons of CO2 were emitted into the atmosphere in Silicon Valley. Achieving the SSV goal means that no more than 10.74 million tons of CO2 will be emitted in 2010. SSV has developed a protocol whereby Silicon Valley organizations can monitor and document CO2 emissions reductions in an effort to help attain the region-wide goal. What was the process used to assess the environment in the Valley? Through a pressure-state-response model, 35 environmental issues that may exert pressure on the natural surroundings, living conditions and economic well-being of Silicon Valley were evaluated by citizens and participating organizations in the Silicon Valley using a web based approach. Pressure - State - Response The conceptual roadmap for the project is the pressure - state - response framework. We have created a framework to consider these pressures based (see below).