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WisBusiness: Green Tier Gets Green Light from Builders
1/28/2005

By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness.com

Growing up in Milwaukee, Laurel Sukup learned at the knee of her grocer father the frustrations of dealing with government inspectors.

Her dad often had to deal with city, county and state regulators who sometimes gave conflicting information, she recalled.

“My father wanted to follow the rules, but it wasn’t always easy, and it took up a lot of his valuable time,” said Sukup, who now works for state Department of Natural Resources, but not as a regulator.

Instead, she helps businesses with good records exceed environmental standards and – as a result – be rewarded with streamlined paperwork, coordinated inspections and other advantages.

Sukup is a business sector specialist with the DNR’s Cooperative Environmental Assistance Bureau in Rhinelander. As part of her job, she coordinates the Green Tier program, which will be one of the main topics at Monday’s conference at Monona Terrace on “Environmental Law in a Connected World.”

The gathering – sponsored by the UW-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs (see www.lafollette.wisc.edu for details) - will draw business, government and environmental experts from around the globe. They will discuss how new regulatory strategies and policies, including Wisconsin’s goal-oriented "Green Tier" law, can improve environmental performance and business success.

Participants will look beyond the top-down, traditional regulatory solutions of the past, and examine strategies and policies that can lead to better environmental results and a more productive business climate.

The conference is a follow-up to last year’s passage of Green Tier and a related fact-finding mission to Germany, where a Wisconsin delegation examined innovative technologies, "green building" practices and new directions in environmental governance. The broad-based Wisconsin group explored how the Green Tier law (modeled, in part, after the Environmental Pacts of Bavaria) could encourage companies to improve environmental performance while boosting productivity and cutting costs.

Sukup’s father probably would have liked one of his daughter to follow in his footsteps.

“As a kid, however, I knew I had a different calling,” she said. “I was interested in the outdoors and geology. I believed and I still do that it is good to protect the environment. But I know now that you don’t have always be the adversary of business to get things done.”

In the beginning of her career with DNR, Sukup said she had little concern about the economic impacts of making a business clean up a spill. Later, when she worked for a time at the Commerce Department, she saw how expensive it could be.

“I’m sure my work probably put some people out of business, though that wasn’t my intent,” she said.

“Over time, I saw that helping avoid problems in the first place would better for everyone,” she said. “And I truly think that most business people want to do the right thing.”

Back at DNR after a three-year stint at Commerce, Sukup went to work for the environmental assistance program, which helped lay the groundwork for Green Tier.

“I worked with companies on waste minimization and recycling and generally helping industry understand - in plain English - what regulations they had to follow and then was a conduit back to the agency for them,” she said. “I thought it was a pretty cool process.”

Sukup said her agency had long operated by telling industry what laws it had to follow.

“And those laws were put in place because of bad actors, because the public had a sense of outrage over misdeeds,” she said. “But the laws also could make life difficult for others who didn’t need intense scrutiny. They still had to deal with all the paperwork and hassles.”

Now, she said, construction companies, paper processors, printers and others are rewarded for going beyond the minimum.

“We don’t need the command and control system with the vast majority of businesses,” she said.

“For those few with problematic backgrounds, however, we won’t enter into agreements," she said.

Sukup called the environmental assistance program and Green Tier a new way for DNR and businesses to deal with each other.

"It’s not perfect, but I like it better than the old system in most cases," she said.

Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council, said he believes Green Tier is an important step forward.

“I think we can responsibly steward the environment while giving businesses flexibility and a chance to be creative about how they meet goals,” he said.

“There is nothing about Green Tier that diminishes environmental protection,” he said. “You can actually set even more aggressive goals and give companies incentives to reach them that aren’t so costly and cumbersome. I think this is a way to get Wisconsin back on the map for both environmental protection and business expansion.”

Jerry Deschane, deputy executive vice president of the Wisconsin Builders Association, said his group is now negotiating with the DNR for a Green Tier charter for new industry wide standards.

“Green Tier is a great idea,” he said. “And this conference will bring in some of the world’s leading experts on the topic.

“The concept is that in exchange for going above and beyond the letter of the law, we can see our regulatory burden streamlined,” he said.

“The great challenge is to work out the details and define what needs to be done on both ends,” he said. “Green Tier is not for every industry, but we are excited about it. The DNR and developers both recognize that the traditional regulatory scheme won’t get either of us where we want to be in the future.”

Caryl Terrell – director of the Wisconsin chapter of the Sierra Club - had praise for the Green Tier concept, but not the Wisconsin bill that became law.

“The bill that was passed by the Legislature last year was the “Green Tier Lite” version,” she said. “It was incomplete and compromised.

“Still, the whole concept of challenging businesses to go beyond minimum compliance is noble,” she said. “And it can provide a useful tool to deal with gaps in environmental regulations that affect people’s lives and the future of clean water and air.”

John Imes, executive director of the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative, was more upbeat about the bill.

“I like it because it creates mechanisms for industries and builders to invest in technologies and practices that will improve both the environment and business performance,” he said.

“It can also give them competitive advantages and distinction in the marketplace,” he added.

"They get the opportunity to do well by doing good and integrating environmental priorities into their business practices,” he said. “So in the end, everyone should benefit.”


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