Overview of TVA’s Environmental Management System

photo of lake

As a regional development agency and the nation’s largest public power provider, TVA is committed to protecting the environmental resources of the Tennessee Valley. To help guide it in that effort, TVA has set up an Environmental Management System, or EMS, which provides:

A set of processes based on best practices to help TVA meet the commitments expressed in its Environmental Policy and Principles
A way to standardize environmental practices
A means for continuous improvement
A tool for reducing environmental risk.

Benefits

TVA’s implementation of the EMS has provided some important benefits:

Improved environmental performance
Enhanced regulatory compliance
Better environmental cost management
Conservation of materials and energy
More innovative solutions to environmental issues
A competitive advantage.

Achievements

With the adoption of its EMS, TVA has:

Become the first federal agency to implement an EMS at all of its facilities.
Saved more than $20 million through solid waste reductions and environmental training efficiencies.
Reduced internal audit regulatory findings, including repeat findings, by 43 percent, the lowest in nine years. These audits verify that TVA operations are in compliance with regulatory requirements and that effective environmental measures are in place.
Reduced the average of annual reportable environmental events by 17 percent. Reportable environmental events are occurrences that trigger a notification to or enforcement action by a regulatory agency.
Saved $4.6 million in 2005 by reducing the number of environmental training courses from 457 to 79, a result of standardization.
Reduced sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions to the lowest levels since all 59 coal-fired units have been in operation.
Reduced environmental impacts by 45 percent.

Learn more about TVA’s EMS

Renovating a Complex EMS. Given at the 14th Annual Corporate Affiliates Workshop in Phoenix (PDF file, 3.4 Mb)

Continuous Improvement for Results. Given at a federal facility workshop sponsored by EPA and DOE (PDF file, 766 kb).

Role of EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency encourages the use of an EMS to improve compliance with regulations and enhance pollution prevention. It evaluates EMS usage in the U.S. to determine which elements and applications are most effective and how they can be used to strengthen environmental programs and policies. Read more:

EPA’s EMS page

EPA’s position on EMS.

EMS international standard

The International Standards Organization has established an EMS standard, ISO 14001, defining the key elements of an environmental management system. TVA has set up a self-declaration program allowing its facilities to declare that they conform to the ISO 14001 standard. The self-declaration program meets a protocol for federal agencies set up by the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive.