IMPACTS: LOCAL\REGIONAL, NATIONAL, GLOBAL

SILICON VALLEY ENVIRONMENTAL PARTNERSHIP

An Initiative Launched by Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network

1999 Silicon Valley Environmental Index:

The impacts of the inaugural 1999 Index can be addressed at global, national and regional levels:

Public Sector Local/Regional Impacts:

The cities of Sunnyvale, San Jose, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Carlos, and Mountain View have all referenced or relied on the Index as the basis for their "sustainable city" efforts or municipal environmental management system (EMS) initiatives. Several of these cities are awaiting an updated Index to use in their municipal planning efforts.
The Index focused the efforts of the Santa Clara County Pollution Prevention Committee on the problem of household pesticides runoff, contributing to the development of a proposed County Pesticides Risk Reduction Ordinance.
As a direct consequence of the presence of the indicators developed in the Index, the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) is spearheading a Silicon Valley regional EMS project, Sustainable Silicon Valley. SVEP is a cosponsor of the Sustainable Silicon Valley project, along with CalEPA and the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group. Ultimately, this effort will be replicated in other regions in California, which will also use the Index as a model to develop measures to track the condition of their regional environment.
The Index has been incorporated into the curricula of environmental science courses taught at San Jose State University, Santa Clara University, DeAnza Junior College, and Pioneer High School in San Jose.

Private Sector Local/Regional Impacts:

The following private sector companies have used the Index as the basis for developing or evolving the environmental aspects and impacts they are managing within their EMS: IBM, Genencor International, the Silicon Valley Group, Raychem/Tyco Electronics, Agilent Technologies, Novellus Systems, and Philips Semiconductor.

National Impacts

State environmental departments in Wisconsin, South Carolina, and New Jersey are using the model of the Index as the basis for regional environmental indicator studies.
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill used the Index as the basis to develop a course curriculum.

Global Impacts

The Index was presented to the 2000 Technical Committee 207 (TC207) International Meetings. TC 207 is the trans-national body responsible for developing the International Standards Organization (ISO) 14000 series of standards and guidance documents on environmental management. As a result of this presentation, five national governments have committed to replicate the Index on a regional basis within their geographies.

The State Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Regional Planning in Bavaria is using the Index as a model for undertaking a regional environmental indicators study within that German state. The Bavarian cities of Munich and Nuremberg are using the format of the Index as the basis for linking their municipal EMS efforts with regional environmental issues.

The National Environmental Ministry of Holland is replicating the Index in the form of a regional indicators study for the Amsterdam municipal region.

The Index was presented at the Pollutant Release & Transfer Registers Task Force meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters ("Aarhus Convention") in Prague, Czech Republic, February 2000.
At the second Meeting of Signatories to the Aarhus Convention in Croatia in July 2000, the on-line version of the Index was featured in a demonstration on best practices in electronic access to information. Television for the Environment, a media production company, filmed the demonstration for a 30-minute United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) documentary on the Aarhus Convention to be distributed globally by BBC World.
The SVEP discussed the extension of the UNEP State of the Environment Report format to include facility-based EMS' at the Aarhus Convention Electronic Tools Workshop, in Arendal, Norway, in March 2001.

The SVEP expects to be invited to present the updated Index at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) Rio+10 Earth Summit in Durban, South Africa, in June 2002.

All of these impacts resulted from the first iteration of the Index. The influence, usefulness, and impact of the Index will grow as the baseline information identified in the 1999 Index is enriched by follow-on information measuring changes in the indicators previously reported.

The work of SVEP as related to the 1999 Index was recognized when it won (co-winner along with Sierra Business Council) the annual Edmund G. "Pat" Brown award given by the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance.