"I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." These nine words were said to be the most feared sentence of President Reagan. Over 20 years later, many companies still feel the same way when they hear three letters: EPA.

However, not all of the Environmental Protection Agency's work is based on regulation and enforcement. Many programs exist to help businesses go beyond compliance. According to the 2007 IndustryWeek/MPI Census of Manufacturers, 70% of U.S. companies are implementing lean in one form or another. EPA's Lean & Environment Initiative builds off of this trend and serves as a clearinghouse of information for companies at all stages of their lean journey. When companies use lean activities to target environmental concerns such as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or fossil fuel use, the results can be astounding. Two examples include General Electric and Canyon Creek Cabinet Company.

General Electric

General Electric's GHG emissions became a major target for some of the lean activities undertaken by the company. GE's plant in Peebles, Ohio, is a leader within the company in applying lean to address GHG emissions. The Peebles facility is a jet engine test facility that spans 7,000 acres of woodland and runs tests in the open air. The amount of testing conducted at Peebles is directly related to the amount of business airlines are doing, and recently the aviation business has been on an upward trend. In the case of Peebles, more engine testing means more jet fuel consumption, which leads to an increase in GHG emissions. As such, Peebles has focused on finding ways to continue growing in business while managing its GHG emissions, and these reductions have also resulted in significant cost savings.

The Peebles facility began production testing in the mid-1980s, and currently tests 1,200 production engines per year. The facility estimates that 1,400 engines will be tested in 2008, followed by 1,500 in 2009, along with a continual increase in engine size. Peebles generally receives the most payback after newly instituting a program, and thus, each year as a program matures it becomes more challenging to improve costs. For 2007, Peebles saw a 17% improvement in cost and the facility has found the benefits to be recurring, because when an improvement is made to one engine it can then be applied to every engine tested thereafter within that engine family.

Canyon Creek Cabinet Company

The Washington State Department of Ecology's Hazardous Waste and Toxics Reduction Program (Ecology) and Washington Manufacturing Services (WMS) partnered in a lean and environment pilot project to provide technical assistance to Canyon Creek Cabinet Company (Canyon Creek), a large manufacturer of custom frameless and framed style cabinetry in Monroe, Washington. Ecology provided environmental expertise, while WMS provided lean expertise and management of on-site activities at Canyon Creek from May through August 2006.

Pilot project participants formed teams that included cross-functional staff from Canyon Creek and Ecology. Each team used the lean value stream mapping (VSM) method to identify improvement activities, and participated in three, week-long kaizen events to implement lean and environment improvements. During the lean events the teams conducted additional analysis of the sources and costs of environmental wastes.

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