Organization
Our Environmental, Health and Safety program is decentralized, with primary responsibility for complying with EHS requirements resting with the leaders and frontline employees at our various facilities. Departments such as Corporate EHS and Corporate Law are available to assist and support the operating areas with technical, strategic, regulatory and legal EHS issues. They also provide strategic direction and leadership on issues such as EHS risk analysis and companywide issues such as Superfund and remediation of historic properties. Throughout the company, each employee shares responsibility for EHS compliance and has an obligation to bring issues and concerns forward for resolution. This obligation is clearly identified in our EHS Policy and in our Corporate Ethics Policy.

APS’ EHS strategic direction and leadership on company-wide safety, health and environmental issues is determined by a hierarchy of cross-departmental committees and teams.  These teams make recommendations to the Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer on matters requiring executive oversight. The teams are also responsible for developing and updating the EHS Policy and EHS Management Plan, and ensuring integrated implementation of these and other critical documents into the company’s operations. These teams have various issues teams reporting to them. The issues teams are responsible for more detailed work on important cross-company issues.

EHS Management Systems
Our EHS Management System (EMS) is a systematic framework for managing our EHS practices and ensuring we meet our goals and objectives. Our EMS is modeled upon the general format of the ISO 14000 standard for Environmental Management Systems, though we have not pursued formal certification since all of Pinnacle West's operations are based within the United States. The EMS is based on APS’ EHS Policy, which sets the vision and operating foundation for our EHS efforts. In addition to the EHS policy, APS has several policies, standards and plans that underscore the importance of our commitment to excellence and ethical business practices, including protection of our environment. 

• The APS EHS Management Plan augments the EHS policy, and outlines our EHS organization and responsibilities for meeting federal, state, county, municipal and tribal environmental, health and safety laws and regulations under which we operate.
• The APS Accident Prevention Manual details the Safety Policy, Responsibilities, and APM rules for employees across the company.
• Our Ethics Policy helps us comply with policies, laws and regulations.
• Our Standards of Business Practices focuses on meeting company standards and legal requirements.
• The APS Code of Conduct outlines the relationship between our traditional energy delivery corporation, APS, and our competitive retail company, APS Energy Services.

In 2005, APS participated in an Environmental Compliance and Management Systems Benchmarking Study of electric utilities sponsored by the Electric Utility Benchmarking Association. In that study, APS was identified as a "Top 5" performer among participating utilities, and components of our EMS were included in the best practices final report from that study.

We believe that the foundation of sound environmental, health and safety management is compliance with all regulations.  However, to build a true sustainable future requires innovation and leadership beyond basic compliance.  In this respect, APS’ EHS programs go beyond basic compliance in order to meet our goals of a sustainable energy future.  The results of these efforts are documented in this report as well as our other EHS annual reports dating back to 1994.

To evaluate and strengthen our compliance management systems we have an EHS Compliance Assurance Program. This program has a four-tier assessment process which includes ongoing facility self-assessments, formal focused self-assessments, an aggressive EHS audit program and periodic extensive compliance reviews. EHS professionals across the company are also active in many professional and industry groups which monitor regulatory changes, evolving EHS and sustainability issues, and other critical EHS matters affecting our industry. APS also has a Public Affairs department that monitors and participates in federal and state legislative processes that may impact the company. All of these efforts are coordinated within the EMS to ensure ongoing compliance and continuous improvement.

Further supporting our compliance management systems are a variety of electronic tools which we use to both identify and manage our current EMS requirements and activities, and to track emerging issues and regulations.