[Judy Pino] 
Hello and welcome 
to Green Scene,
EPA's series of environmental 
podcasts that you can take
with you.
I'm Judy Pino with the 
Office of Multimedia.
Across the country 
major corporations,
small businesses and public 
facilities are steering
a course toward environmental 
excellence by going
above and beyond their legal 
requirements to improve
the quality of our nation's 
air, water and land.
EPA recognizes their 
efforts through the
Performance Track program, 
and to talk to us about
that is Rick Otis, Deputy of the 
Office of Policy, Economics
and Innovation.
Rick, thanks for 
joining us.
[Rick Otis] 
My pleasure.
Thank you for 
inviting me.
[Judy Pino] 
Now, EPA has many 
voluntary programs,
but what has made 
Performance Track
the most comprehensive program?
[Rick Otis] 
Well, one of the things many of 
our partnership or stewardship
collaboration programs 
the agency has --
many of them focus on a 
particular environmental
goal, for example, energy stars, 
energy efficiency;
we have programs dedicated to 
recycling or water reduction
and so on and so forth, like 
the new Water Sense program.
Energy Star program 
does energy.
Performance Track's main goal 
is to look at a variety --
more holistic look of 
environmental things,
so you're looking at 
pollution reduction
from the manufacturing plant, 
you're looking at the design
of the product itself, 
you're looking at your
upstream customers.
You're looking at water, 
you're looking at air,
you're looking at land.
You're looking at all 
these different things
in one facility.
[Judy Pino] 
Comprehensive.
[Rick Otis] 
Comprehensive.
[Judy Pino] 
Now, there are thousands of 
corporations, small businesses
and facilities across the 
country, but there are
only 500 members of 
Performance Track,
and that's pretty exclusive.
[Rick Otis] 
It is.
[Judy Pino] 
Tell us why.
[Rick Otis] 
Well, it's a program that you 
can't just sign up for.
It has a very rigorous 
application process.
We do it twice a year, 
and people apply,
they fill out some of 
the applications,
and we do a lot of hard work and 
look at them very carefully.
We don't always 
accept everybody.
We actually at some times say, 
"I'm sorry, you're just not
ready for the program," 
and we've turned people
down for it.
They have to have a record 
of sustained high level
of environmental compliance 
with existing regulatory
requirements.
They have to have environmental 
management systems in place.
They have to promise 
to undertake some
beyond-compliance environmental 
improvements they wouldn't
ordinarily do, and they have 
to report their progress
to the public.
That's a lot of things 
people have to do.
We're looking for environmental 
leaders across the country.
[Judy Pino] 
So, it's hard to get in and 
it's also hard to stay.
[Rick Otis] 
Yes, it's hard 
to stay in.
We've actually said to some 
folks who had a hard time
keeping up with the requirements 
-- we've actually asked them
to leave.
[Judy Pino] 
Now, why would any of these 
members want to do more
than is required?
What are the benefits of 
joining Performance Track?
[Rick Otis]
Well, when the program 
was created in, I think,
about 2000 by the then-EPA 
Administrator Carol Browner
under the Clinton/Gore 
administration and with
the support of all of EPA 
administrators since,
it was a recognition that 
across the country
we're beginning to see 
individual facilities
or companies where they're 
trying to weave environmental
performance into 
how they succeed.
In other words, they're 
aiming for both economic
and environmental 
sustainability.
And this is a very important 
and very interesting trend,
and we're trying to create 
an agency program that
fosters that.
[Judy Pino] 
How does it fit into the 
overall mission of EPA?
[Rick Otis] 
Well, part of our job in 
improving environment
and health over the years as 
we've -- in the first 37 years
of the agency, at the very 
beginning we focused mostly
on regulations and enforcement, 
and we got a lot of
environmental improvement 
from that.
But over time we've learned 
that we really need a much
wider range of tools, 
and this is a program
designed to take advantage 
of not only the minimum
regulatory requirements 
you have to meet,
but to take advantage of 
creating peer groups,
creating a world in which 
somebody is doing it for,
in a sense, their own interest.
[Judy Pino] 
Now, let's talk about 
the results that are
being achieved through
this program.
[Rick Otis] 
One of the things that we aim 
for is we have them look for
stretch goals.
This is something that's 
hard for them to do,
and we aim -- I think four goals 
is what they look for,
and they have a year or a couple 
of years to meet those goals.
We've made substantial 
improvements in
environmental results.
There's 5.2, I think, billion 
gallons of water saved,
52,000 tons of hazardous waste 
that are not being generated
or not having to be disposed, 
16,000 acres of land that's
been turned into 
habitat support.
So, the environmental numbers 
are pretty impressive,
and the key thing to remember: 
these are improvements beyond
the minimum they were 
already required to do,
things they didn't 
have to do.
[Judy Pino] 
And I understand Performance 
Track is also having influence
in a number 
of arenas.
[Rick Otis] 
It does.
When the program was created, 
we weren't the only ones with
the idea of trying to encourage 
this beyond-compliance mindset.
There were states that were 
thinking the same thing.
We now have 20 state 
counterparts, and we
work with them on coordinating 
our programs and theirs,
so across the country at 
the state level we see
a recognition of the same 
importance of Performance Track.
We also got a recognition from 
the Kennedy School at Harvard --
it's sort of what I would call 
the Oscars of the public sector
-- as one of the most innovative 
federal programs,
and we're quite 
proud of that.
We've also noticed, 
rather interesting,
that the financial investment 
community is beginning to
look at Performance Track 
as a recognition of
"something unusual is going 
on in this company that may
warrant a careful look."
[Judy Pino] 
So, the most exciting thing 
is that this is a voluntary
program and you still have 
members that have been
around since the beginning.
[Rick Otis] 
We have members that have been 
around since the beginning,
and actually, for those members, 
membership is getting difficult
in a sense that they've achieved 
many beyond-compliance goals
that they've set and now they 
have to look for new ones.
And it's interesting to watch a 
company strive to go way beyond
compliance to the point where 
they're talking to their
customers or they're looking 
downstream at the product
and saying, how do we 
do a better job?
[Judy Pino] 
And that's the idea behind 
Performance Track.
[Rick Otis] 
Yes.
[Judy Pino] 
Rick, thank you so much 
for everything you do.
Thanks for enlightening 
us on this issue.
[Rick Otis] 
My pleasure.
Thank you.
[Judy Pino] 
And, of course, Performance 
Track welcomes all qualifying
facilities, and applications 
are accepted twice a year,
April 1 through May 31 and 
September 1 through October 31.
Annual performance reports 
and renewal applications
are available on February 1 
and due on April 1.
And for more information, 
please visit
www.epa.gov/performancetrack.
See you next time 
on Green Scene.