EFCOG Best Practice #116

Best Practice Title: Environmental Scorecards

Facility: Y-12 National Security Complex

Point of Contact: Brad Skaggs, (865) 241-2582, skaggsbe@y12.doe.gov

Brief Description of Best Practice: Environmental scorecards are an organization-specific measure of environmental performance to assist managers and environmental support staff in identifying opportunities for improvement. Six factors, based on functional metrics, make up the overall rating which follows a familiar “stop light” color system, similar to the site-wide metrics.

Why the Best Practice was used: The scorecards were developed to improve focus on environmental metrics, improve performance feedback to management and environmental support staff, and communicate environmental metrics in an easily understandable manner. Use of the scorecards allows organizations to focus on problem areas and tracking and trending of their own environmental performance.

What are the benefits of the Best Practice: The scorecards clarify roles and responsibilities and increase ownership of environmental performance in the organizations. They provide feedback for continuous improvement and allow organization managers to consider environmental performance when setting priorities and goals. Posting the scorecards on an internal website fosters constructive competition with positive peer pressure.

What problems/issues were associated with the Best Practice: The practice was not communicated well with senior managers prior to implementation which resulted in some confusion. Some managers were discontent with the scoring system.

How the success of the Best Practice was measured: Management attention to environmental concerns has improved, performance feedback to environmental support staff is clearer, and the number of environmental concerns is decreasing.

Description of process experience using the Best Practice (see attached presentation): Each organization is assigned a color rating representing Excellent, Meets Expectations, Needs Improvement, or Unsatisfactory. Each color rating is based on six factors which are included in the site-level metrics.  Ratings are posted on an internal website in a matrix format with a six-month history available and ‘Needs Improvement’ and ‘Unsatisfactory’ ratings always include an explanation of the rating.  Notifications are sent via electronic mail when new metrics are posted and all organization ratings are visible.

Environmental metrics are not new to Y-12, but organization-level metrics have had limited success in the past.  The unique aspect of these scorecards is that each organization rating factor is tied directly to a site-level metric.  This allows users to relate their organization’s environmental performance to the overall environmental performance of the site.  In addition, publishing the scorecards on an internal website in a matrix format has reduced the effort needed to compile the monthly scorecards and has improved communication to the organizations.