Environmental Management System

BPA utilizes an Environmental Management System (or EMS) to meet it's environmental stewardship responsibilities. This EMS is implemented through an agency wide Balanced Scorecard Management System which guides BPA's activities to ensure implementation of environmental requirements and to encourage a process of continuous improvement. This EMS is compatible with the principles of ISO 14001 (International Standards for Environmental Management Systems).

The above standards are based on Plan-Do-Check-Act, described as follows:

Plan: Establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the organizations environmental policy.

Do: Implement the processes

Check: Monitor and measure processes against environmental policy, objectives, and targets, legal and other requirements and report the results.

Act: Take actions to continually improve the performance of the environmental management system.

Balanced Scorecard System - The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) system provides the means for implementing BPA's environmental management program. BSC is a framework for the agency to clarify its vision and strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improve strategic performance results. The balanced scorecard approach provides a clear prescription of what BPA should measure in order to balance perspectives. It also helps to develop clear measures and identify steps to achieve business goals. The four perspectives utilized are:

Stakeholder
Financial
Internal
People & Culture

BPAs Focus
As a public agency BPA has chosen to place its stakeholders at the top of the list, rather than financial outcomes.

The major elements of the strategic program include:

A Strategy Map - Describes the major long-term objectives (out 4-5 years), balanced across the above perspectives. A BPA strategy map captures agency-level long-term objectives. A business line strategy map captures specific business line objectives supporting the agency level objectives.
A Scorecard - Describes the major near-term objectives (current budget year), targets, measures and initiatives for each business line. These goals are translated into performance plans or contracts with the respective senior VP.

In addition BPA has added four major focus areas to guide how it sets priorities. These are the pillars of what BPA provides as public benefits to the region and should be the focus of how we measure our direction. The four overriding focus areas/priorities include:

System Reliability
Environmental Stewardship
Low-Cost Provider
Regional Accountability

For more information please reference the office of Pollution Prevention & Abatement (KEP) in your inquiry.