Planning for Sustainability

Jim Newton, P.E., DEE

Course Outline

This four hour course provides valuable information for those individuals who participate in the operations and management of utilities, non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), governmental agencies and any other individuals with an interest in protecting the planet and being a better world citizen.  Completion of this course will provide the student the necessary information and testing to meet the continuing education requirements in order to renew their licenses.  It was designed by an instructor who has developed and implemented numerous similar training courses. 

This course requires the completion of a multiple-choice quiz at its conclusion in order to obtain the necessary certification.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Understand the EPA approach to planning and sustainability;
• Understand the element of goal setting;
• Understand how goal setting is currently employed in the planning process;
• Understand how to build sustainability into goal setting;
• Understand how to implement goal setting on a small scale;
• Understand how hey diagnostic questions to ask when setting goals;
• Understand some examples of sustainable goal setting;
• Understand the element of setting objectives and targets;
• Understand how objectives and targets are set in the current planning process;
• Understand how to incorporate sustainability into setting objectives and targets;
• Understand the key diagnostic questions to ask when setting objectives and targets;
• Understand some examples of setting sustainable objectives and targets;
• Understand the element of alternative analysis;
• Understand how an alternative analysis is conducted in the current planning process;
• Understand how to incorporate sustainability into an alternative analysis;
• Understand the key diagnostic questions to ask;
• Understand examples of sustainable alternative analyses;
• Understand the element of financial strategy analysis;
• Understand how current financial analyses are conducted;
• Understand how to add sustainability into a financial analysis;
• Understand key diagnostic questions to ask;
• Understand examples of sustainable financial analyses;
• Understand useful sustainability planning resources and; and
• Understand the relationship between sustainable infrastructure planning and EPA’s Effective Utility Management program.

Intended Audience

The intended audience for this course is any professional who is involved in the operation and management of utilities, non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), governmental agencies and any other individual with an interest in protecting the planet and being a better world citizen.

Benefit to Attendees

Attendees of this course will understand the basic concepts of sustainability and how to implement these.

Course Introduction

In recent years sustainability has gained significant momentum.  Many large corporations such as Nike, Wal-Mart, and McDonald’s are embracing the concepts of sustainability.  Both large corporations and small non profits all are seeing benefits to incorporating sustainability concerns into their business models.  Many businesses have become sensitive to social and stakeholder issues.  Sustainability can be thought of as a three legged stool and represented as the three e’s (economics, ethics and the environment) or the three p’s, (profit, planet and people) or based on an EPA description: social, environmental and economic health.

Course Content

In this course, you are required to study the US EPA publication, “Planning for Sustainability: A Handbook for Water and Wastewater Utilities”  provided as a pdf document as a part of this course.  This document describes the steps utilities can take to enhance their existing planning processes to emphasize utility and community sustainability.

Planning for Sustainability: A Handbook for Water and Wastewater Utilities

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Course Summary

This course discusses basic utility planning concepts.

Related Links

For additional information related to this subject, please visit the following websites or web pages:

US Environmental Protection Agency

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

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DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.

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