Earth Belt Certification

Have you applied Lean and/or Six Sigma tools and techniques to have a positive and measurable impact on the environment?

Would you like to get official recognition of your efforts and achieve a Earth Belt certification?

WHY IS IT CALLED “EARTH BELT”?

Early on when Six Sigma was being created, the colored belt system was adopted from martial arts, where a Green Belt is considered a new improvement specialist with some experience, and a Black Belt is an experienced specialist who mentors the Green Belts. We decided to use the same concept, and are calling it “Earth Belt”. The idea is to designate individuals who have Lean and Six Sigma knowledge that have applied their experience to solve environmental problems. However, our system is much simpler, with no required or mandatory training, just simply provide proof of one improvement activity, and explanation of how you learned about these tools and techniques.

CRITERIA

We are providing a certification as evidence that you have applied Lean and/or Six Sigma process improvement tools and techniques to an environmental issue. This can be applied within a community, agency, organization, business, corporation or within your own home. We will accept all improvements (big or small), as long as you can explain the approach you took, what tools that were used, and measure the impact.

Environmental impacts include reductions in carbon emissions (methane and CO2), water, energy, land use, fuel, raw materials (chemicals, food, supplies, parts, toxins, etc), and air emissions, or an increase in recyclables, renewable energy or compostables.
Lean and Six Sigma tools include: brainstorming, fishbone diagrams, 5 Why’s, checksheets, control charts (SPC), histograms, statistical analysis, gage studies, kanban, 5S, Value Stream Mapping and process mapping, Go and See events, kaizen events, DMAIC/PDCA/8D/A3, standard work, single piece flow, 8 forms of waste, and many more.

It is recommended to explain the specific tools or techniques that were used, in order to increase your chance of certification. Just stating that you did brainstorming, communication, or you empowered the employees might not be sufficient.

Don’t have the Lean or Six Sigma background, or want a refresher? Take our FREE online training course, Lean Six Sigma for the Environment >>>

Or consider signing up for the WASTE Walks Challenge, which upon completion would qualify for this certification.

There is no cost to apply and receive a certification at this time. In the future, we may require a processing fee.

If you completed your activity in the past (more than one year ago), you can still use it to apply for certification. There is no limit on how long ago the improvement took place. However, it will not qualify for an annual award (must be completed in current calendar year).

You will also get access to our Earth Belts Private Facebook Group to network and help others drive this initiative forward (optional, not required to join).

If you feel you qualify as an Earth Belt, then pursue the certification today!

IS THERE ANY RE-CERTIFICATION REQUIRED?

There is no re-certification or maintenance required, however, we hope you continue to make improvements to the environment. In fact, each additional submission you provide will enter you into our annual awards.

ANNUAL AWARDS

At the end of each year, we will collect up all the activities that were submitted (which had improvements that occurred in the previous calendar year), and we will award winners for the following categories:

Most creative
Most impactful to the environment
Most impactful to behavior change
Most innovative

Award winners will be announced in February.

STEPS TO CERTIFICATION

The program is very simple…

Step 1: Complete an activity that improves the environment, and document what was done, and what the benefits were to the environment and organization involved. If you need some training and ideas, take the FREE online course
Step 2: Fill out the application form
Step 3: After submitting the form, you will need to email us evidence (artifacts) of your improvement. This usually consists of a PowerPoint presentation, report summary, pictures, video and/or testimonials. The more evidence you provide, the quicker we can review it.
Step 4: We will review your application and artifacts and either approve, request more information, or deny your application (with explanation). If not approved, we will allow up to 30 days from the decision date for additional evidence to be provided. If 30 days has passed, then the application will be denied. You can resubmit at any time in the future, but you will need to re-submit an application (Step 2).
Step 5: If approved, we will email you a PDF document of your certificate.
Step 6: You will receive an invitation to the Earth Belts Private Facebook Group

We will list a summary of your project, along with your name on our website, to inspire others to obtain the certification, or to replicate what you did. We may also contact you to help us capture your improvement as a case study, or interview you for our blog, newsletter or future content (video, podcast, etc).

To get started, review and fill out the application form >>>

If you have any questions, please contact us.