Strategy Development and Reporting by PESP Partners
PESP strategies use a goal-oriented approach to focus members' efforts in reducing pests and pesticide risks. Strategies should:
- Convey the member's organizational goals for the next five years as they relate to one or more of sample performance measure categories
- Identify the challenges and opportunities that the member may face in achieving its goals
- Describe the method the member will use to determine if it is successful
- Provide a means for EPA to recognize the member for its accomplishments
Detailed guidelines for preparing PESP strategies and progress reports can be found in the Member Handbook.
Goals
When joining PESP, all members commit to develop and use innovative practices that reduce risk to human health and the environment and pledge that environmental stewardship is an integral part of their pest management program. To help realize the overarching risk-reduction goal of PESP, members think about their efforts in a five-year timeframe. Members' strategies encompass:
- Discussion of the major pest/pesticide issues facing their industry.
- What they envision doing to try to resolve these issues.
- Whether practical, problem-solving activities are available to resolve these issues that will be accepted by key stakeholders.
- What might EPA be able to do or facilitate to help resolve these issues.
- How they will determine whether they have been successful in achieving their intended results.
- Economically-feasible measures of success that they can utilize to track progress toward goals.
Members' goals are not expected to change annually; however, it is important that they are reassessed regularly to be sure they still fit the organization's current member standing. If a member's pesticide issues/goals changed substantially over the past year, it would be important to reassess its PESP strategy. A member's strategies and tactics should easily flow from its goals and lay out the path it will take over the next five years to achieve its risk reduction goals.
Tactics
In the tactics section, members should describe the efforts that their organization will make in the coming five years to attain their risk reduction goals. For example, if an association's goal is to implement IPM, one of the tactics could be to educate its members on a specific IPM technique.
Focus on tactics that can affect change within five years. For longer-term or more open-ended goals, the tactic may be only a single phase of a multi-phase effort.
In addition to describing the tactic, indicate how it links with organizational goals and how it will ultimately reduce pesticide risk. While the expected impacts of some projects may be obvious, other projects may impact risk in more subtle or distant ways.
Finally, members should describe how they will measure the success of each tactic. Ideally, they will be able to measure the actual change that occurs as a result of their activities.
Submitting a New Strategy
We are upgrading our data reporting system, and Members will be able to develop and submit their strategies once this upgrade is complete.
Future Reporting and Strategies
While members' strategies will be in place for five years, they will be asked to report annually on the outcomes of their tactics and progress toward their stated goals.
Annual reporting gives members the opportunity to highlight their successes, document their challenges, and share their lessons learned. Reports should quantify progress whenever possible. Quantifiable information will give EPA a better picture of members' accomplishments and help EPA measure the success of PESP.
Strategies are active for five years following submission. At any time during those years, members have the opportunity to revise their strategy or to restate their goals or tactics. Members will soon be able to develop and submit their report for their organization.