EMS: C.A. Lawton’s Involvement in Environmental Management System
The C.A. Lawton Company is proud to be part of an Environmental Management System (EMS) recommended by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The benefit of having an EMS is to provide systematic framework that guides compliance with regulatory requirements and methodical, objective and corrective action. The cool thing is that an EMS can help address non-regulated issues as well. Those include energy conservation, and it can lead to promoting stronger operational control and better employee stewardship.
Basic Elements of EMS
- Reviewing the organization’s environmental goals;
- Analyzing its environmental impacts and compliance obligations (or legal and other requirements);
- Setting environmental objectives and targets to reduce environmental impacts and conform with compliance obligations;
- Establishing programs to meet these objectives and targets;
- Monitoring and measuring progress in achieving the objectives;
- Ensuring employees’ environmental awareness and competence; and,
- Reviewing progress of the EMS and achieving improvements.
An EMS itself does not dictate the levels of environmental performance that must be reached. Instead, each organization’s EMS is tailored to its own individual objectives and targets.
EMS leads Lawton to think, mitigate and plan for potential future events. Those would include things like fires, spills, natural disasters and active threats. You can read more about the Environmental Management System and how it works on the US EPA’s website: https://www.epa.gov/ems/what-ems
Potential Benefits of EMS
The list of potential benefits from an EMS is quite lengthy and The C.A. Lawton Company can already see some of these benefits taking shape here in De Pere. Here is the list of potential benefits, per the EPA’s website:
- Improved environmental performance
- Enhanced compliance
- Pollution prevention
- Resource conservation
- New customers/markets
- Increased efficiency/reduced costs
- Enhanced employee morale
- Enhanced image with public, regulators, lenders, investors
- Employee awareness of environmental issues and responsibilities
History of Environmental Stewardship at C.A. Lawton
The C.A. Lawton Company in De Pere, Wisconsin is designated as a Green Tier 2 manufacturer by the Wisconsin DNR. We take our commitment to being sustainable, environmentally friendly and stewards in our community very seriously. Lawton started off as a Tier 1 participant in 2013. Since then, Lawton added the EMS, gained certification to ISO 14001 and achieved goals for waste reduction, recycling, energy conservation and more. In 2021, the company was bumped up to a Tier 2 participant. This demonstrates Lawton’s commitment to superior environmental performance. It also allowed Lawton to become the first to receive coverage under the exclusive Green Tier Registration Permit (ROP-G). The permit provides an increased threshold and operational flexibility only to Tier 2 participants. It requires that the facility maintain air emission levels below 80% of the major source threshold.
Lawton CEO Alex Lawton had this to say when the company received the special permit: “Building off of our long-running Beyond Compliance program, we are leveraging our Green Tier 2 status and other dynamics to become an early adopter of the State of Wisconsin’s ROP-G permit option. As I have said both privately and publicly before, the state is doing some great work here to innovate and evolve its regulatory framework. For qualified businesses, this represents improved stakeholder relationships and effective regulation coupled with efficiencies for all parties. We are glad to be a fit for these developments and delighted to work with the state to get them implemented.”
Background on Lawton’s Green Tier Involvement
Lawton named first-ever foundry to achieve Green Tier 2 status.
Lawton celebrates 10 years with Green Tier program.
The C.A. Lawton Company becomes first Green Tier participant to receive special new air permit.
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