Managing Risk

As stated in our Program Goals for responsible environmental stewardship, we wish to minimize our impact on the environment and reduce risk to our company. By reducing risk of negative environmental impact resulting from our activities, we help to assure (at least in one dimension) the continued viability of our enterprise. And in so doing, we can increase the degree of confidence our customers have in our organization to continue to be able to contribute to their business success.

Environmental Management System

The John Roberts Company has implemented an Environmental Management System (EMS) as one of its prime tools for attaining and assuring responsible environmental stewardship. Begun in early 1993, this EMS has continued to evolve to include not just environmental management, but also our core safety management and loss control efforts. Our experience has shown that the environmental and safety disciplines share a great deal in common, and that we can benefit enormously from their joint management.

Our EMS has been modified to be in conformance with the requirements of the ISO 14000. Broadly, these requirements include consideration of policy, planning, implementation and operation, checking and corrective action, and management review.

Our EMS defines our environmental impacts and spells out precisely the steps we will take to minimize, or better yet, completely eliminate those impacts. Our EMS is the foundation of how we communicate to our employees and our community and other stakeholders.

Our EMS document may be reviewed at our corporate offices by simply requesting an appointment with the Environmental Department.

Environmental Auditing

The John Roberts Company is committed to conducting regular, periodic, independent environmental audits at its facility. Our audits have been conducted by auditors from the Printing Industry of Minnesota's Environmental Services Corporation. Auditors evaluate environmental compliance performance, but perhaps of equal importance, look for any systemic problems that might impair our ability to quickly identify and correct potential non-conformance issues on a daily basis. Audits are conducted under the Printer's Partnership established with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. This partnership agreement requires corrective action be completed in a timely fashion and certified as resolved.

Between formal, independent audits of our facility, we regularly conduct several levels of internal inspection. Results of these inspections are reported to line management every month at one of the Environmental & Safety Committee scheduled meetings.

Public Disclosure

Following on the heels of the audit partnership established between Minnesota's printing industry and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the concept of voluntary disclosure of environmental audit results was expanded to include all Minnesota industry. Thus the Minnesota Green Star program was born. Companies that voluntarily release a summary of their environmental audit, and that committed to and completed corrective action in a timely manner, would be recognized as Green Star facilities.

The John Roberts Company was one of the very first to have achieved this Minnesota Green Star status in 1997, and has continually maintained this status ever since.