9.5 Environmental Commitment
Key Takeaways
- The Air Force is trustee to over 8 million acres of natural habitat and has followed a compliance-based approach to environmental management for over 20 years.
- AFI 32-7001, Environmental Management, implements the environmental management system framework for all Air Force installations in the United States, territories, and foreign countries.
- The three environmental management system priorities are compliance, risk reduction, and continuous improvement.
- The environmental management system has four phases — Plan, Do, Check, and Act — as outlined in DoDI 4715.17.
- The Air Force Civil Engineer Center manages the Air Force compliance, restoration, sustainability, and National Environmental Policy Act programs.
The Air Force as Environmental Trustee
AFH 1 opens Section 12E with a claim and a number: "The USAF is a leader and devoted guardian of the environment. As trustee to over 8 million acres of natural habitat, the USAF takes considerable measures to defend and enhance America's rich natural resources and cultural heritage."
Over the last 20 years, the Air Force has followed a compliance-based approach to environmental management, producing what the handbook calls "an unparalleled record of responsiveness to regulation, community interests, and ecological needs."
The 8 million acres figure is the single most testable number in this section.
Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century is "aimed at establishing an environment in which all Airmen are actively eliminating waste and continuously improving processes" — the same continuous-improvement logic that runs through Excellence In All We Do in Chapter 1 and through resource stewardship in Section 12D.
AFI 32-7001, Environmental Management, implements the environmental management system framework and "provides guidance and procedures applicable to all USAF installations within the United States territories and foreign countries." Note the scope: it is not limited to installations in the United States.
Why an Environmental Management System
AFH 1 grounds the requirement in scale: the Department of Defense is "the nation's largest user of federal lands, consumers of energy, and operators of large industrial complexes," and therefore "must strive to ensure efficient operations while reducing its environmental footprint."
The obligation reaches every supervisor: "All USAF commanders, supervisors, and process owners shall integrate environmental considerations into daily work activities and at all levels of decision-making for current or proposed actions that may adversely impact the environment."
The environmental management system itself is defined as "a set of processes and practices that enable a reduction in environmental impact and an increase in operating efficiency." Notice that the definition names two outcomes — reduced impact and increased efficiency — which is what makes environmental management a resource-management topic rather than a purely regulatory one.
The Three Priorities
| Priority | What AFH 1 says it means |
|---|---|
| Compliance | Compliance will be maintained with all environmental legal obligations and regulatory guidelines |
| Risk reduction | Achieved through a standardized approach to protect USAF assets, personnel, and material by effectively identifying and managing risks from environmental encroachment |
| Continuous improvement | Instilling a culture that encourages and supports continuous improvement will reduce environmental impacts and regulatory burden |
Memorize the order: compliance, risk reduction, continuous improvement. Distractors typically substitute "conservation," "restoration," or "sustainability" — all real Air Force environmental activities, but none of them one of the three named priorities.
The Four Phases
The system is designed with four phases, outlined in DoDI 4715.17, Environmental Management Systems. This is the classic Plan-Do-Check-Act improvement cycle applied to environmental management.
| Phase | Contents |
|---|---|
| Phase 1: Plan | Determining the management system's scope, environmental policy and commitment statement, environmental aspects and impacts, legal and other requirements, objectives and targets, and action plans. Effective planning lets leadership focus resources on mitigating risks that present the greatest threat to mission capability |
| Phase 2: Do | An environmental risk reduction strategy for aspects associated with processes or activities that generate pollutants. Each facility identifies opportunities to optimize business, operational, or industrial processes in terms of pollutant reduction, lower energy use, reduction in the use of natural resources, water conservation, and improvements to health and safety |
| Phase 3: Check | Environmental monitoring and measuring to increase leadership awareness of compliance issues, identify and analyze trends of non-conformance and non-compliance, identify areas for improvement, provide lessons learned to prevent similar non-compliance at other installations, and minimize or avoid environmental litigation risks |
| Phase 4: Act | The management review to assess the suitability, adequacy, and effectiveness of the management system |
The Check phase's five purposes are the longest list in the section, and the lessons-learned-to-other-installations element is the one most often overlooked.
Program Areas
AFH 1 lists the environmental program areas identified in AFI 32-7001 and other environmental AFIs. They cluster naturally into materials, resources, and process:
| Cluster | Program areas |
|---|---|
| Media | Air quality; water supply |
| Materials and waste | Hazardous materials; hazardous waste; solid waste; toxic substances; petroleum, oil, and lubricants; storage tanks |
| Living and cultural resources | Pest management; cultural resources; natural resources |
| Process and assessment | Environmental planning; environmental restoration; environmental baseline surveys; overseas compliance policy |
The presence of overseas compliance policy as its own program area reinforces the earlier point about AFI 32-7001's worldwide applicability.
Environmental Compliance and AFCEC
The Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC) is "responsible for managing the USAF compliance, restoration, sustainability, and National Environmental Policy Act programs." Those four programs are a testable list.
AFCEC provides HAF, major commands, and installations with environmental compliance support — "delivering the compliance programming and execution expertise, core knowledge and leadership required to ensure USAF installations comply with regulatory programs" related to:
- Air emissions
- Water quality
- Wastewater discharges
- Hazardous waste generation
- Natural and cultural resource management
AFCEC also serves as the central point for collection and analysis of environmental data in various program areas, and its team includes subject matter experts in regulatory compliance, environmental restoration, hazardous waste management, pollution prevention, and environmental assessments.
How This Connects for an NCO
Section 12E sits at the end of a chapter about money, manpower, and materiel for a reason. Environmental compliance is treated in AFH 1 as another form of stewardship: a hazardous-waste violation costs the installation real money in remediation and penalties, and a pattern of non-conformance shows up in the Check phase exactly the way a pattern of small property losses shows up in a financial liability investigation. When an SJT scenario or a knowledge item asks what a supervisor should do about an improperly stored container of used solvent, the answer that aligns with AFH 1 is the one that integrates environmental considerations into the daily work activity rather than deferring it as someone else's program.
What are the three priorities of the Air Force environmental management system?
Which organization is responsible for managing the Air Force compliance, restoration, sustainability, and National Environmental Policy Act programs?
Which phase of the environmental management system includes monitoring and measuring to identify trends of non-conformance and provide lessons learned to other installations?