March 18, 2021 Comments are off kellen
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GEMI Announces Mark Johnson as Chair of Board of Directors for 2021

Washington, DC. The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) has announced Mark Johnson, Senior Vice President and Director Private Sector Services, Gannett Fleming, Inc., as the Chair of GEMI’s Board of Directors for 2021.

Mark Johnson

“I am honored to serve as GEMI’s Chair in 2021” said Mark Johnson, Senior Vice President and Director Private Sector Services, Gannett Fleming, Inc.  “GEMI provides a unique forum for corporate sustainability leaders to work together to develop actionable solutions to current and emerging business challenges.  I am looking forward to working together with the leaders of this organization to advance the future of sustainable business, and help other businesses to prepare and lead their sustainability programs through an increasingly complex and disruptive future.“

In recent years, GEMI worked with the Institute for the Future (IFTF) to explore various external drivers of change that are likely to challenge companies as they strive to meet their business and sustainability goals over the next decade and beyond, culminating in the publication of the GEMI Future Forces That Will Disrupt Sustainable Business report in March 2020. 

Over the next year, GEMI will be working to advance action on key insights gained through that process through a new Sustainable Disruption Project, while continuing its work to identify new solutions for recycling of food contaminated plastics through a Contaminated Plastics project, as well as its long-term mission of developing tools and resources to help companies improve the environment, their operations and add business value.

“Building on the learnings of last year’s Future Forces report, GEMI looks forward to working with Mark Johnson to bring corporate sustainability leaders from across sectors together to identify, understand and develop strategies to prepare for a wide range of possible future global disruptions that may challenge short to mid-term business sustainability goals, while creating new opportunities for leading organizations to position themselves for greater resiliency and success in the long-term,” said Steve Hellem, GEMI’s Executive Director.

Gannett Fleming has been a collaborator of GEMI since the early 2000s and joined GEMI as a full member in 2015. Mark Johnson was first elected to GEMI’s Board in 2016 as Communications Chair before being elevated to the role of Vice-Chair in 2018, and Chair in 2021.

As a partner to GEMI’s Water Sustainability Work Group in the 2000s, Mark Johnson and his team at Gannett Fleming lead the development of GEMI’s Collecting the Drops: A Water Sustainability Planner tool. The web-based tool is tailored for facility managers or owners and guides them through the process of assessing water use and impacts from their operations. 

In 2016 GEMI again partnered with Mark’s team at Gannett Fleming on the development of an ISO 14001:2015 Self-Assessment Checklist, which has become one of the organization’s most highly downloaded tools in the years since.  The Excel checklist is designed to improve facility managers’ understanding of the requirements and elements of the environmental management system outlined in the ISO 14001:2015 international standard.

“Mark and his team at Gannett Fleming have partnered with GEMI on a range of environmental sustainability projects over the past two decades, and we look forward to continuing to work together in advancing collaborative solutions to the range of new sustainability challenges and opportunities that will be impacting business over the years to come”, said Steve Hellem.

About GEMI 

GEMI (www.gemi.org) is a global leader in developing insights, networking, and creating collaborative sustainability solutions for business. For over 25 years, GEMI has captured the vision and experience of global corporate environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability leaders from diverse business sectors through the development of a wide range of publicly-available, solutions-based tools designed to help companies improve the environment, their operations and add business value.   GEMI member companies and project supporters include organizations such as, ConocoPhillips, The Davey Tree Expert Company, Dell, ExxonMobil Chemical Company, FedEx Corp, FMI – The Food Industry Association, Gannett Fleming, JBS USA, Sealed Air Corporation, Smithfield Foods, Tyson Foods, Waste Management and Winpak.

January 15, 2019 Comments are off kellen
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GEMI Launches New Project to Look Ten Years Ahead at External Future Forces That Will Disrupt the Business of Sustainability

The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) today announced the launch of a new project focused on External Future Forces That Will Disrupt the Business of Sustainability, in collaboration with the Institute for the Future (IFTF).

In 2007, GEMI worked with IFTF to create a 10-year custom forecast focused on external future forces likely to disrupt sustainability. The forecast was quite accurate and it gave GEMI project members unusual foresight that contributed to their business strategy.

Now, GEMI and IFTF are partnering again to look another ten years ahead at a very different future in a very different world. In this world, it is too late to have just a sustainability strategy. Now, companies must have a strategy that melds sustainability and business. The project will focus on this research question: ‘Over the next ten years, what four or five external future forces are most likely to disrupt the business of sustainability for companies, the industry, and society at large?’

“Through this project, GEMI and IFTF have committed to work together to develop a new custom forecast that will point a ten-year lens on external future forces—including both threats and opportunities—that will disrupt sustainability, with a focus on business choices and business strategy,” said Bill Gill, AVP Sustainability, Smithfield Foods, and GEMI’s Chair.

“Our goal for the project is to use foresight to awaken, engage, and drive change in the present. Urgent future disruptions are looming and this project will provide the grounding to engage with and win through the most important external future forces,” said Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow, IFTF.

Current GEMI member companies and project participants committed to participate in this project include: American Forest & Paper Association, Carnival Corp & plc, CBRE, ConocoPhillips, Dell, The Dow Chemical Company, ExxonMobil Chemical, FedEx Corp, Gannett Fleming, Ingersoll Rand, Lockheed Martin, SABIC, Schlumberger, Sealed Air, Smithfield Foods and Waste Management.

To learn more about this GEMI project and opportunities for participation as either a GEMI member or non-member project participant, please contact Kellen Mahoney.

About GEMI 

GEMI (www.gemi.org) is a global leader in developing insights, networking, and creating collaborative sustainability solutions for business. For 25 years, GEMI has captured the vision and experience of global corporate environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability leaders from diverse business sectors through the development of a wide range of publicly-available, solutions-based tools designed to help companies improve the environment, their operations and add business value.

About Institute for the Future 

Institute for the Future is the world’s leading futures thinking organization. For over 50 years, businesses, governments, and social impact organizations have depended upon IFTF global forecasts, custom research, and foresight training to navigate complex change and develop world-ready strategies. IFTF methodologies and toolsets yield coherent views of transformative possibilities across all sectors that together support a more sustainable future. Institute for the Future is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Palo Alto, California.

January 17, 2018 Comments are off kellen
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GEMI Announces 2018 Board of Directors

January 18, 2018, Washington, DC. The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI) has announced its new Board of Directors for 2018.

Steve Hellem, GEMI’s Executive Director, stated, “It is my pleasure to announce that GEMI has elected Bill Gill, AVP Environmental Affairs, Smithfield Foods as its Chair for 2018.”

“I am looking forward to continuing to serve as GEMI’s Chair in 2018” said Bill Gill.  “GEMI provides a unique forum for corporate sustainability leaders to foster global environmental sustainability excellence through thought leadership, world-class meetings, and the development of leading sustainable business solutions and collaborations, and I look forward to working together with fellow GEMI members to advance this mission in 2018. “

Mr. Hellem added, “In addition to Bill’s leadership role as the 2018 Chair of GEMI, we are very pleased to announce three new members joining the Board in 2018: George Racine of ExxonMobil Chemical Company; Joe Lima of Schlumberger; and, Phillip Crowder of Sealed Air Corporation.”

The GEMI Board of Directors for 2018 includes:

  • Chair:Bill Gill, Assistant Vice President Environmental Affairs, Smithfield Foods, Inc.
  • Vice-Chair: Mark Johnson, Senior Vice President, Director – Environmental Compliance & Remediation Services, Gannett Fleming, Inc.
  • Project Chair: Phillip Crowder, Director, Sustainability Services, Sealed Air Corporation
  • Membership Chair: Joe Lima, Director Environmental Sustainability, Schlumberger Limited
  • Communications Chair: George Racine, Senior Advisor, Sustainability, ExxonMobil Chemical Company

“The GEMI Board of Directors is an impressive group of corporate environmental sustainability thought leaders, and we appreciate their strong commitment to and leadership of GEMI’s mission of creating collaborative sustainability solutions for business,” said Steve Hellem, GEMI’s Executive Director.

For more information about GEMI please visit GEMI’s website at www.gemi.org

October 4, 2016 Comments are off kellen
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GEMI publishes new ISO 14001:2015 Self-Assessment Checklist

GEMI publishes new ISO 14001:2015 Self-Assessment Checklist

Tool helps sustainability professionals quickly assess an organization’s management practices according to the latest ISO 14001 updates

Washington, DC – The Global Environmental Management Initiative (GEMI), a global leader in developing insights, networking and creating collaborative sustainability solutions for business, today released a new edition of its GEMI ISO 14001:2015 Self-Assessment Checklist to reflect the 2015 revisions to the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System standard. The checklist enables a rapid self-assessment of an organization or facility to determine how closely existing management practices and procedures correspond to the elements of the standard.

GEMI produced its original checklist in 1996 to help interested companies understand the requirements of the new-at-the-time ISO 14001 standard, an internationally recognized approach to managing immediate and long-term environmental impacts of an organization’s products, services and processes. Since then, ISO has continued to update the 14001 standard, with the most recent 2015 update offering substantial adjustments.

“Sustainability strategy and management best practices have rapidly transformed during the last 20 years, and we felt it was a priority for our group to overhaul GEMI’s original checklist to reflect the current environment,” said Mark Johnson, senior vice president, director – Environmental Compliance & Remediation Services, Gannett Fleming Inc., and communications and marketing chair, GEMI. “We moved away from GEMI’s original lengthy document format to offer a spreadsheet that will make it easier for people to complete efficiently and digest the standard requirements across seven key categories.”

Of note, some of the biggest changes to the ISO 14001:2015 standard—and therefore, GEMI’s tool—are the following:

  • Identifying and addressing the opportunities and risks that may impact an organization’s environmental management system
  • Emphasizing stronger requirements for identifying an organization’s stakeholders and having a stakeholder communications plan
  • Demonstrating commitment to improved environmental performance, not just continual improvement
  • Identifying environmental aspects associated with the life-cycle stages of products and detailing where the organization can control or influence the environmental aspects of those life-cycle stages
  • Requiring top management accountability and engagement to incorporate the standard in the operational functions and strategic direction of the business

“Globally, many organizations have come a long way from retroactively reporting on benchmarks to more proactive thinking on environmental management, and this tool should help all environmental professionals brush up on the latest methods,” said Bill Gill, AVP environmental affairs, Smithfield Foods, and chair, GEMI.

GEMI provides a forum for its members to work together to identify and develop new solutions for current and emerging sustainability issues. GEMI’s ISO 14001:2015 self-assessment checklist was developed in a collaborative process by GEMI members.  The development of this new GEMI checklist was led by Mark Johnson of Gannett Fleming with support from Steve Rowley and the Gannett Fleming compliance and management team.

GEMI’s ISO 14001:2015 Self-Assessment Checklist can be found here: https://gemi.org/14001

About GEMI 

GEMI (www.gemi.org) is the global leader in developing insights, networking, and creating collaborative sustainability solutions for business. For 25 years, GEMI has captured the vision and experience of global corporate environmental, health and safety (EHS) and sustainability leaders from diverse business sectors through the development of a wide range of publicly-available, solutions-based tools designed to help companies improve the environment, their operations and add business value.