Breaking New Ground—Stories from Defence Construction Breaking_new_ground | Page 97

Measuring performance Partly as a result of the Auditor General ’ s Special Examination in the late 1980s , DCC placed a stronger emphasis on performance indicators in order to judge its performance . These figures measured a variety of key issues — for example , the level of DCC employee effort required to put in place construction work of a certain type and how this measure varies over time and in different circumstances . This “ work in place ” ( WIP ) ratio was the key performance indicator in these times of spending restraint and very much focused management on maximizing efficiency and seeking new methods of achieving the Corporation ’ s mission without compromising the quality of either DCC services or the finished construction .
The environment gains priority As the decade opened , there was a gradual recognition of the negative impacts , and indeed the damage , that had been sustained by the environment as a result of past practices . In 1990 , Canada ’ s Green Plan committed the government to ensuring that its operations and procedures met or exceeded national targets for protecting the environment . That was followed by the 1991 Code of Environmental Stewardship , which covered all areas of federal activity , including facilities and real property management , procurement and waste management . By 1992 , government departments and agencies were required to develop and implement environmental action plans , subject to periodic audits .
Contaminated soil and debris are excavated at FOX-4 Cape Hooper , an Auxiliary Radar Station on the east coast of Baffin Island , Nunavut .
DCC chose to participate in these action plans , even though Crown corporations were not required to do so . DCC ’ s first Environmental Action Plan , in January 1993 , addressed issues of employee liability and indemnification with respect to environmental laws and their penalties . But it was an astute corporate move to embrace environmental issues , because it was becoming clear that DND would be addressing them in a significant way in the years to come — expanding DCC services to include expertise on sustainability and remediation would offer the client a significant benefit in the future .
In 1991 – 92 , for example , many projects were initiated to remove and dispose of asbestos and PCBs , and to replace underground fuel tanks and remediate hydrocarbon contaminated soil . These cleanups reflected DND policy , which by the mid-1990s required that both new construction and the decommissioning of old facilities would be carried out in accordance with the most stringent standards of federal and provincial environmental laws and regulations .
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