MPCA Strategic Plan

The MPCA is currently reviewing and updating its strategic plan. As part of this update leadership held three focus groups in September and October 2012 with external stakeholders. Participants in these focus groups identified threats and opportunities to the MPCA moving forward with the strategic plan.

The MPCA’s strategic plan, revised in 2008, charts the agency’s direction for the next several years. It contains a balance of goals and objectives reflecting the agency’s “core” work — permitting, inspections, compliance, enforcement, etc. — as well as agency aspirations needed to better align results with our mission.

It also contains “stretch” goals and objectives intended to challenge the agency in improving the environment.

The strategic plan is not an agency work plan, nor does it directly reflect all of the MPCA’s work. It does not contain much information about the strategies used to accomplish the goals and objectives. These strategies are spelled out in annual work planning efforts.

The plan contains many new and revised goals and objectives. A few important examples include:

• An increased focus on addressing the challenges of global climate change through efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• A new goal to build on the state’s capacity to address emerging environmental issues, such as endocrine disrupting compounds and nanotechnology.
• Changes in the agency’s goals that focus on creating sustainable behaviors and processes to encourage conservation of resources and a healthy environment.

The MPCA’s broad vision and goals of its strategic plan are listed below. Additional details on specific objectives and target dates are available in the document near the end of this page.

Vision: Minnesotans take responsibility to protect our environment

Specific goals to help reach this vision include:

• Minnesotans buy green products and services.
• Minnesota businesses produce green products and provide green services by reducing or eliminating the use of environmentally harmful substances.
• Minnesotans act on their environmental knowledge to support healthy ecosystems.
• MPCA leads the way to minimize its environmental footprint and assist other public entities to do the same.

Vision: Minnesota's air is clean and clear

Specific goals in this section include:

• Minnesota’s outdoor air will meet or improve upon all environmental and human health-related federal and state ambient air quality standards.
• Minnesota’s outdoor air quality will meet environmental and human health benchmarks for toxic and other air pollutants.
• Minnesota reduces its contribution to regional, national and global air pollution.

Vision: Minnesota's land supports healthy ecosystems and sustainable land uses

Goals in this section include:

• Ensuring solid waste is managed to conserve materials, resources and energy.
• Minimizing or reducing the release of contaminants to or from the land.
• Restoring land to productive use by managing risk from contaminated sites.

Vision: Minnesota has clean, sustainable surface and ground water

Specific goals to help reach this vision include:

• Assessing the condition of Minnesota’s ground water systems and providing information on the effectiveness of best management practices in preventing and reducing degradation of ground water and supporting ground water conservation.
• Assessing the chemical, physical and biological integrity of Minnesota’s lakes, streams and wetlands to identify if designated uses are being met, and providing information on the condition of waters.
• Protecting and improving the chemical, physical and biological integrity of Minnesota’s lakes, streams and wetlands.

Vision: Excellence in operations

Specific goals include:

• Providing a safe and healthy workplace for all employees, volunteers and visitors.
• Managing agency operations to support the agency’s environmental work and core operations in effective and efficient manner.
• Achieving excellence through application of appropriate tools and best practices.
• Providing a reliable information management system that supports the agency and its partners in effective and efficient environmental work.
• Maintaining the agency’s capacity to recognize and address emerging issues that fall within the agency’s authority.

Additional details

More details about the MPCA’s strategic plan are available in the document below. It includes specific objectives associated with each goal as well as target dates by which the agency intends to accomplish them.

• MPCA Strategic Plan

Questions?

If you have questions about the MPCA’s strategic plan, please contact Luke Charpentier 651-757-2268 or by e-mail at luke.charpentier@state.mn.us.