Strategic EHS Thinking
Georjean Adams has a proven track record showing her strategic ability to see the overall picture – how processes work and don’t work together in your business to achieve the goal of good EHS practices and which elements are core to your vision.
By being able to see the disconnects, EHS Strategies, Inc. can help you identify and design new processes to better leverage existing processes and reallocate resources to better achieve EHS goals - without adversely affecting business targets.
Georjean Adams saw the need for new core processes and ways of thinking to achieve product stewardship:
Product Stewards
She helped design and grow a new function of "product responsibility liaisons" within each division of 3M, making them integral to the new product development and customer service operations in the business, rather than relying on a central corporate staff that could not act fast enough nor understand the individual business' needs. Corporate staff provides economies of scale in maintaining a central database, training functions for the product responsibility liaisons (PRLs), monitoring, communicating and influencing regulations that might affect 3M businesses. PRLs focus on product-specific regulations and customer inquiries and aid product design through the use of life cycle management - all resulting in reduced time to market, compliant products and satisfied customers.
Life Cycle Thinking
She helped design and champion a tiered process of considering life cycle EHS concerns for new and existing products that focuses on the areas of higher risk for review by expert staff, giving flexibility to allocate resources where truly needed and guiding product developers to design the product to minimize EHS concerns at the beginning stages. Every business at 3M has integrated Life Cycle Management into its new product introduction process.
Information Management
She directed development of a database that serves multiple EHS needs - manufacturing and product risk management and compliance, for use by EHS experts and business PRLs - in a way that integrates with other information sources throughout 3M - production, purchasing, imports and exports, emission calculations, among others.
Product Risk Management
She led development of the Product Risk Management Strategy for the Chemical Manufacturers Association that laid the framework for how industry and government can meet the public's need for assurance of adequate chemical risk management. From this work, she helped develop successful positions in negotiation with EPA to reduce reporting burdens on industry and new tools for business' EHS risk management.
