Programs That Help You Lead
The Forum offers programming from Tuesday October 25, 2016 through Friday morning, October 28, 2016. The core educational program occurs on Wednesday and Thursday but plan to arrive early and stay late to take advantage of the full week of learning and networking.
View pre & post-conference activities and schedule:
Schedule-at-a-Glance: Wednesday & Thursday
Scroll below for the full program details with session descriptions.
Wednesday October 26, 2016
7:00 a.m. |
Registration Opens and Breakfast |
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| 8:00 a.m. | Opening Remarks | |||
8:30 a.m. |
Opening Keynote - Simplifying Complexity
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10:00 a.m. |
Morning Break |
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Tracks |
Track 1: | Track 2: | Track 3: | Track 4: |
10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. |
Session 1: Living in a Material World: Using Materiality Assessments to Drive Sustainability Strategy and Metrics Selection |
Session 2: Creating a Safety Strategy, Getting Buy-In, Measuring Success |
Session 3: Overcoming Global EHS Management and Compliance Challenges |
Session 4: Lessons from the Zero Waste Journey |
12:00 p.m. |
Lunch |
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1:30 - 3:00 p.m. |
Session 5: Strategic Transparency and the Evolution of Sustainability Reporting |
Session 6: Risk Management Approaches to Safety Performance Improvements |
Session 7: Regulatory Trends and Developments to Watch |
Session 8: Getting More Renewable Power in Your Energy Portfolio |
3:00 p.m. |
Afternoon Break |
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3:45 - 5:15 p.m. |
Session 9: How is Your EHS & Sustainability Data Being Used? |
Session 10: Employee Engagement: Making Safety Everyone's Job |
Session 11: Leveraging EHS Management Systems to Shift EHS Thinking and Performance |
Session 12: Communication and Influencing Skills for EHS&S Leaders |
5:30 - 7:00 p.m. |
Welcome Reception |
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Download the PDF Agenda.
Thursday October 27, 2016
7:00 a.m. |
Registration Opens and Breakfast in the Exhibit Hall |
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| 8:30 a.m. | Opening Remarks | |||
8:45 - |
Keynote Session - Leading as an EHS&S Professional Now and Into the Future
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9:45 a.m. |
Morning Break in the Exhibit Hall |
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Tracks |
Track 1: | Track 2: | Track 3: | Track 4: |
10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. |
Session 13: Product Sustainability Strategies |
Session 14: Driving Safety Beyond Your Four Walls |
Session 15: Putting a System in place to Reduce EHS and Sustainability Risk in Your Supply Chain
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Session 16: Ensuring Your License to Operate: Strategies and Tools to Be Part of the Water Management Solution |
12:15 p.m. |
Business-to-Business Luncheon |
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1:45 - |
Session 17: Tips and Strategies for Establishing a Supply Chain Sustainability Program |
Session 18: Next Generation Injury Prevention Approaches |
Session 19: Successful EHS Management Before and After a Merger or Acquisition |
Session 20: Owning your Career: Professional Development for You and Your Team |
3:15 p.m. |
Afternoon Break |
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3:45 p.m. |
Thursday Afternoon Keynote - NAEM IGNITE Power Hour |
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5:15 p.m. |
Closing Remarks |
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6:30 - |
Thursday Evening Networking and Dinner Event |
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Download 2016 Forum Schedule-at-a-Glance PDF
Programs That Help You Lead - Full Conference Program
If you're looking for new ideas to improve efficiency, manage risk or advance sustainability, you'll find inspiration through the interactive discussions and peer case studies the Forum delivers.
Wednesday October 26, 2016
7:00 a.m. |
Registration Opens |
7:00 - 8:00 a.m. |
Breakfast in the Exhibit Hall |
8:00 - 8:30 a.m. |
Welcome and Opening Remarks |
8:30 - 10:00 a.m. |
Opening Keynote - Simplifying Complexity Recent research on natural ecosystems suggests that, for any problem with many moving parts that all influence one another, the more complex the problem - the more resistant it seems to change - the easier it may be to understand and solve. In this talk, Eric Berlow explores how embracing complexity can lead to simple answers. How can complexity theory help us harness more creativity to solve difficult problems? How can you map complex systems to be able to isolate their most influential agents? And, how can we use our knowledge of ecosystems to help solve our largest societal problems? Berlow unravels his fascinating research to help audiences embrace complexity and become better problem solvers, while sharing insights into the ways big data is changing our ability to see and solve complex problems.
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10:00 - 10:30 a.m. |
Morning Break |
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Track 1: Strategic Sustainability |
10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. |
Session 1: Living in a Material World: Using Materiality Assessments to Drive Sustainability Strategy and Metrics Selection A well designed materiality assessment can make the next steps in determining what needs to be done within a company sustainability program easier to achieve. The direction afforded by knowing what is important to internal and external stakeholders will guide you in making choices in programs and direction. This session will provide an understanding of the process used by companies that are well along in the use of materiality as their highway to success in sustainability. You will gain insight into how they leveraged the understanding gained through their materiality assessment to get where they are and the difficulties or transitions made to best use this new focus.
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Track 2: Safety Leadership |
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10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. |
Session 2: Creating a Safety Strategy, Getting Buy-In, Measuring Success This session will help you consider how to be strategic and relevant regarding efforts to improve safety. In the session, you'll learn how different organizations have engaged leadership, defined safety success, and how they've identified key transformational measurements. You'll understand important differences between measuring activities and measuring value when striving for safety excellence.
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Track 3: Reducing Risk, Spotlighting Value |
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10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. |
Session 3: Overcoming Global EHS Management and Compliance Challenges Overseeing EHS Compliance and Management for a global company presents a host challenges from data collection, to creating and implementing global policy and standards, to different perceptions of risk, safety and compliance. Have you been able to leverage EHS capabilities and expertise regionally and globally? What strategic internal partnerships, and external networks and services are enabling industry-leading global programs to be successful? How have programs matured from compliance-driven, to data management, to a supportive and sustainable Global EHS Management program? This session will showcase strategic approaches, lessons and reflections from senior EHS leaders that have tackled some of these challenges and explore how they found success.
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Track 4: Innovative Resource Management |
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10:30 a.m. |
Session 4: Lessons from the Zero Waste Journey Benefit from the insights of a panel of experts who are living the Zero Waste journey. Learn answers to questions, such as: How do you define “Zero Waste"? What did your company do to begin the Zero Waste journey? What are some of the key challenges your Zero Waste efforts have faced and how have you addressed these? Learn about the key practices for being successful in pursuing Zero Waste and understand how the panelists have demonstrated the value of their Zero Waste efforts.
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12:00 - 1:15 p.m. |
Lunch |
Track 1: Strategic Sustainability |
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1:30 - 3:00 p.m. |
Session 5: Strategic Transparency and the Evolution of Sustainability Reporting Many companies are conflicted when it comes to external sustainability reporting. External organizations assure us that their report or format is essential to our stakeholder's needs, but the value of pursuing any one course can often remain unclear. In this session, we'll hear from different organizations – ones that find value in participating in a variety of reporting programs and ones that strategically limit their participation. Our goal will be to separate the signal from the noise of sustainability reporting and give attendees a better sense of the strategic decisions they can make for their own programs. Attendees will also gain an understanding of the macro trends that are happening in the corporate sustainability reporting realm.
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Track 2: Safety Leadership |
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1:30 - 3:00 p.m. |
Session 6: Risk Management Approaches to Safety Performance Improvements This session will defy traditional safety thinking and showcase new tools and approaches to drive continuous safety performance improvements. You'll hear how organizations have prioritized risk; how they've focused on high risk areas through Serious Injury and Fatality (SIF) prevention; and how they've managed risk by looking at human and organizational performance.
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Track 3: Reducing Risk, Spotlighting Value |
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1:30 - 3:00 p.m. |
Session 7: Regulatory Trends and Developments to Watch Evolving global regulations will be reviewed in light of the recent 2015 Paris COP Agreement, REACH 2018, new TSCA requirements and potential circular economies. Regulations are rapidly changing and our goal is to help you sort through these challenges. This session will provide attendees with a review of these and other emerging issues and how you can manage them in your business. In this session, we will explore how companies are assessing these evolving environmental risks and how they can develop adaptive management strategies.
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Track 4: Innovative Resource Management |
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1:30 - 3:00 p.m. |
Session 8: Getting More Renewable Power in Your Energy Portfolio
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3:00 - 3:45 p.m . |
Afternoon Break |
Track 1: Strategic Sustainability |
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3:45 - 5:15 p.m. |
Session 9: How is Your EHS & Sustainability Data Being Used? Awareness about sustainability practices continues to grow as investors and customers demand more data and better data. This session will help attendees understand how the data they are sharing and reporting, whether via ESG investor questionnaires, an organization-specific reporting platform, or customer requests, is being analyzed and used by investors, customers and other external stakeholders. Come and learn what sustainability data looks like on a Bloomberg terminal, hear from ESG experts, and representatives that are actually working with the data you collect and report. Plus, get insights into how companies will begin acting on the sustainability data they have been collecting for the last several years. Attendees will leave with insights that will help them make sure the data they are sharing and who they share it with will position their company for increased brand value, reduced risk and a competitive advantage.
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Track 2: Safety Leadership |
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3:45 - 5:15 p.m. |
Session 10: Employee Engagement: Making Safety Everyone's Job How do you engage your entire organization in safety? This session will share ways that organizations have engaged employees at all levels, leveraged other functions and successfully driven ownership of safety into all aspects of their organization. Take away inspiration and validation for the type of culture shift that is possible in your safety program.
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Track 3: Reducing Risk, Spotlighting Value |
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3:45 - 5:15 p.m. |
Session 11: Leveraging EHS Management Systems to Shift EHS Thinking and Performance Management systems (EHSMS) have been instrumental in helping our field shift from a compliance-orientation, to one where focus is on performance improvement and organizational impact. The next evolution of EHSMS is pushing into areas of enterprise risk management, organizational health, and expanding the EHS function’s depth and breadth. This session will show how cutting-edge approaches are taking existing EHSMS frameworks to new levels, and in turn, are helping EHS professionals increase their perspectives and impact.
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Track 4: Innovative Resource Management |
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3:45 - 5:15 p.m. |
Session 12: Communication and Influencing Skills for EHS&S Leaders EHS professionals build their careers on a solid technical foundation – some of them so well they find themselves promoted to leadership positions. However, leading a team is a very different than being a member of the team. Come to learn how others have made the transition from individual contributor to leader. This session will be good for those who are new to leadership and also those who are mentoring or working with someone who has recently been promoted to a leadership role.
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5:30 - 7:00 p.m |
Welcome Reception |
Thursday October 27, 2016
7:00 a.m. |
Registration Opens |
7:30 - |
Breakfast in the Exhibit Hall |
8:30 - |
Opening Remarks |
8:45 - |
Keynote Session - Leading as an EHS&S Professional Now and Into the Future Drawing on a learnings from career of more than 30 years in environmental management, Wayne Balta, the Vice President of Corporate Environmental Affairs and Product Safety for IBM will open our day with an informative and inspiring look at corporate environmental & sustainability management today, and into the future. He’ll explore the skills and competencies he believes leaders will need to steward their programs and teams for the coming years, and discuss the opportunities he sees for each of us to make substantive contributions at our organizations, ultimately resulting in collective impact and progress forward in our field.
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9:45 - 10:45 a.m. |
Morning Break in the Exhibit Hall |
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Track 1: Strategic Sustainability |
10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. |
Session 13: Product Sustainability Strategies As the concept of a circular economy takes hold, EHS&S professionals are shifting beyond a focus on product regulatory compliance programs towards driving sustainability strategy across the value chain. This session will demonstrate how organizations are using such tools and concepts as Life Cycle Assessment, Materials Marketplace, Green Chemistry, and Material Alternative Assessments, to improve the sustainability of their product and services and move towards a circular economy, one that is restorative and regenerative by design, and which aims to keep products, components and materials at their highest utility and value at all times.
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Track 2: Safety Leadership |
10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. |
Session 14: Driving Safety Beyond Your Four Walls Safety at work is just the start. With the changing dynamics of the workforce, there are many new issues challenging employee health and safety. Hear how organizations have tackled safety challenges. Learn how companies are keeping their employees healthy, safe and focused on the task at hand, at work and beyond. This session will also examine the business value of total worker health programs, distracted driving and explore how to effectively drive safety initiatives within your organization.
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Track 3: Reducing Risk, Spotlighting Value |
10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. |
Session 15: Putting a System in place to Reduce EHS and Sustainability Risk in Your Supply Chain In this session participants will learn about key global supply chain risks and how to put a system in place to mitigate disruptions, scarcity, and social pressure. Speakers will focus on topics like severe weather, socio-political conflicts, global warming, resource over-use, conflict minerals, and forced labor that impart a growing risk on modern global supply chains. Participants will leave with a working knowledge of modern supply chain risk factors and strategies for combating these ever growing issues.
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Track 4: Innovative Resource Management |
10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.. |
Session 16: Ensuring Your License to Operate: Strategies and Tools to Be Part of the Water Management Solution What steps are companies taking to prepare for and mitigate water-related risks? What are companies doing to use water more efficiently, make the business case for water reduction in their operations, and reduce their net impact on their local watersheds? This session will provide insight into how various companies’ water programs address water scarcity risks, water conservation and water stewardship, and how innovation is helping address global water challenges.
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12:15 - |
Business-to-Business Luncheon |
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Track 1: Strategic Sustainability |
1:45 - |
Session 17: Tips and Strategies for Establishing a Supply Chain Sustainability Program This session will provide the audience with three unique perspectives on supply chain sustainability from a supplier, an equipment manufacturer and a retailer. Attendees will hear tips, strategies, and lessons learned through the process of creating supply chain sustainability programs that include elements of environmental sustainability, along with EHS and social compliance. Panelists will also discuss the business drivers and value derived from their programs, offering insights into how to build the business case for starting or enhancing your own program.
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Track 2: Safety Leadership |
1:45 - |
Session 18: Next Generation Injury Prevention Approaches You’ve driven your injury rates down but are looking for tools to push them to the next level. How do you continue to improve your injury prevention processes? This session will look at organizations that are working toward improving their incident prevention program by focusing on behavior, ergonomics, reducing slips, trips and falls, and getting the most out of OSHA’s VPP program.
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Track 3: Reducing Risk, Spotlighting Value |
1:45 - |
Session 19: Successful EHS Management Before and After a Merger or Acquisition In these times of fast paced business deals, we will discuss how to get your company proactively thinking about EHS in mergers and acquisitions. Learn from your peers who have weathered the storm, how to get that seat at the table, talk in terms the business understands, and provide immeasurable value to your company by identifying the risks up front. Once the deal is done, we'll explore how to take the best of both companies and integrate system and cultures. Getting acquired? Learn from your peers how to compare systems and take the best of both worlds.
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Track 4: Innovative Resource Management |
1:45 - |
Session 20: Owning your Career: Professional Development for You and Your Team A great EHS&S career doesn’t happen by accident. It takes planning, tools and perserverance. You need to own your own career while helping your team to grow professionally, stay engaged, and be ready to take that next step. How can you do that? Come to this session and find out how through peer presentations on personal and team development as well as an interactive workshop. Leave with insights and tools that you can use to be sure you are owning your career and helping your team do the same.
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3:15 - |
Afternoon Break |
3:45 - |
Thursday Afternoon Keynote - NAEM IGNITE Power Hour Imagine ten topics from ten experts in less than sixty minutes. Attend this curiously fast-paced peer-led session and experience a new kind of event; one that will have you at the edge of your seat with innovative ideas, lessons learned and how-to information straight from the experts. Listen as your peers present informative and engaging material in a high energy, 5-minute Ignite format. Some presentations will be EHSS related, others may just be fun topics that will illustrate the Ignite concept. Your imagination will run wild as you think of various ways that you could make use of the Ignite concept in your workplace and training. So prepare to be entertained and intrigued for the entire session! Then brainstorm on how best to apply this useful tool back at work!
Speakers include nine dynamic and inspiring EHS&S leaders from the NAEM Community |
5:15 - |
Closing Remarks |
6:30 - |
Thursday Evening Networking and Dinner Event at the historic Wynkoop Brewery |
Download the PDF Agenda.
2016 Forum Track Descriptions
Track 1: Strategic Sustainability
Sessions in this track will focus on the key steps and considerations leaders must take to ensure that their sustainability efforts are organized around a clear strategy, generating business value, and communicated effectively. As companies identify that many of their material EHS and sustainability impacts are happening outside of their immediate operations, this track will also offer a focus on sustainable supply chains and products.
Track 2: Safety Leadership
For leading companies, safety management isn’t just a collection of programs. It is embedded in the company culture, touching each and every employee and influencing behavior on and off the job. Sessions in this track will address how to develop a safety strategy and measure success, and will also feature a variety of tools and systematic approaches to reduce safety risks, drive down injury rates, engage employees and extend safety beyond your company walls.
Track 3: Reducing Risk, Spotlighting Value
As a profession, we have long since left behind the notion that EHS is a compliance-only function and continue to reaffirm the strategic value that proactive EHS management brings to companies. Sessions in this track will focus on ways EHS leaders are demonstrating value through risk reduction efforts. Attendees in these sessions will gain insights into how their peers are driving performance through developing management systems, leading integration efforts in mergers and acquisitions, reducing risk in supply chains, and juggling an array of global challenges. It will also include a comprehensive look at regulatory and standards trends and developments on the horizon.
Track 4: Innovative Resource Management
Whether referring to natural or human resources, this session will give attendees a change to focus on specific ways their peers are leveraging resources and delivering big wins for EHS and sustainability. Sessions will also touch on strategies for ensuring the EHS function has a strong succession plan, attracts and retains talent, and offers an opportunity to build leadership skills in the area of influence and communications.
Download the 2016 Forum Track Descriptions as a PDF.
Interested in Speaking?
Are you an EHS or sustainability leader with a case study to share? Contact Virginia Hoekenga, NAEM Deputy Director at (202) 986-6616 to learn about speaking opportunities.
About NAEM
The National Association for Environmental Management (NAEM) empowers corporate leaders to advance environmental stewardship, create safe and healthy workplaces, and promote global sustainability. As the largest professional community for EHS and sustainability decision-makers, we provide peer-led educational conferences and an active network for sharing solutions to today's corporate EHS and sustainability management challenges. Visit NAEM online at www.naem.org.
