Implement and Monitor Environmentally Sustainable Work Practices
Implement and Monitor Environmentally Sustainable Work Practices
Implement and Monitor Environmentally Sustainable Work Practices
Green trains
In 2006, when clients began asking for information on Eurostar’s carbon
emissions, the Cross-Channel rail company commissioned an independent
study. The study revealed that journeys between London, Brussels and
Paris produced one tenth the CO₂ emissions of equivalent flights. They
seized the opportunity – travelling by train wasn’t only good for business
but good for the environment.
Eurostar introduced its Tread Lightly program in April 2007. The program
offered ‘carbon neutral’ journeys at no extra cost. Purchasing carbon
credits via an offset provider and targeting a further 25% reduction on CO₂
emissions per traveler by 2012. A 10-point plan was also launched by
Eurostar to reduce its wider environmental impact for example: sourcing
on board food locally and stepping up waste recycling at depots.
Eurostar was correct in its assessment of the opportunities sustainable
operations offer - eighteen per cent more passengers were attracted in the
first half of 2008 compared with the previous year.
About 70% of Australia’s GHG emissions are CO₂, one of the most
4damaging greenhouse gases.
Sustainability reporting
In 2007, Australia launched a voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reporting System
to begin measuring emissions output in preparation for the launch of a
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
The National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System (NGERS), a
mandatory scheme, commenced in July 2008.
Increasingly consumers, employees, investors and other stakeholders
expect organizations to report on their sustainability. They view reporting
as a measure of trustworthiness and good governance. Reporting signals
the organization’s seriousness about environmental responsibility and
indicates its ability to track and manage its ecological footprint. This in turn
correlates with good general management and superior market
performance.
An organization’s lack of attention to environmental concerns is likely to
have serious cost and risk implications placing them at a strategic
disadvantage. It is assumed that organizations that do not report have high
emissions. They are considered exposed to forthcoming emission charges,
increasing energy costs and other risks that could undermine their ability
to operate successfully.
To begin reporting for your organization, collect and report information on
greenhouse gas emissions. Detail your plans for improving energy
efficiency and your targets for reducing emissions. Investigate the factors
that affect the sustainability of your organization. These will vary for
different industries and individual organizations. When you have identified
the factors important to your organization’s sustainability, you can work
out how to measure them.
Used by more than 1600 organizations worldwide and developed at the
Amsterdam Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency in 2010,
the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is the most widely used sustainability
framework of reporting principles, guidelines and standard disclosures on
environmental, social and economic performance. Known as G3 Guidelines,
they help organizations make relevant disclosures on their economic,
environmental and social performance. The G3 Guidelines can be
downloaded from the GRI website www.globalreporting.org
Regulations
The federal government’s climate change policy is underpinned by two key
mechanisms:
1. National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act, 2007 (NGER Act)
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/reporting
2. The Australian Government’s Climate Change Plan – Clean Energy Future
http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/
Those where the corporate group as a whole emitted more than 125
kilotons of GHG’s or produced or consumed more than 500 terajoules of
energy
Not only do you need to consider the impacts of the resources your
organization acquires in order to produce products or services, you also
need to consider the impact of the use of the product or service by the
customer. A light globe manufacturer, for example: needs to measure the
resources they used to make a light globe and the energy customers will
consume in using the light globe.
Measure and document current resource usage
You will need to carry out a resource usage assessment in order to
measure the resource usage. In addition to examining the use of all
resources consumed by your organization, you also need to investigate
waste generated by your organization. The results will assist you in
identifying ways resource efficiency can be improved and to develop an
action plan.
In addition to calculating the organization’s total resource consumption
and waste generation the resource usage assessment will also:
Calculate the resource usage and waste generation for each business
activity or area
Data should be regularly updated once the initial assessment has been
carried out. You may consider analyzing the data on a monthly basis. Some
organizations break the data down further seeking to identify trends in a
day - greater usage in the morning in contrast to the afternoon or a week
to compare days. The analysis will assist in deciding where your efforts
should be focused when identifying resource efficiency solutions.
Once the data has been collected and analysis completed you can now
move onto identifying the actions that may reduce resource usage and
waste generation. This information can be documented in your resource
efficiency plan.
Purchasing strategies
The purchasing decisions your organization makes on goods, resources and
services will have an impact on the environment. To be environmentally
responsible organizations should seek to buy resources, goods and services
that have less impact on the environment than their alternatives.
For example: purchasing products that are made from recycled materials
or have minimal packaging.
The benefits of environmental purchasing are:
Decrease energy and water use
Decrease waste
Reduce pollution
Outputs are what are produced or done with the inputs. They allow you to
see the immediate results of your inputs or how they have been used or
applied
Identify programs
There is no magic formula to follow when developing sustainability
programs. Each organisation’s approach needs to blend with its overall
strategy. There are however, some general guidelines.
Organisations included in either NGER or Clean Energy future should
reduce their emissions as much as possible to reduce the amount of
pollution permits and carbon offsets or credits they need to purchase.
Identify a range of initiatives and innovations for developing sustainable
work practices from which to select the most suitable. Selecting suppliers
with low carbon footprints may be the next step. After that, you could
work with your organisation’s integrated value chain to look for ways to
mitigate climate related and sustainability costs and risks across the chain
to assure reliable and sustainable supplies.
The journey to sustainability is a long one for many organisations.
Identifying a range of eco efficient actions to take now at the beginning of
the journey will be of benefit. You may also begin to plan for longer term
eco effective measures.
Use problem solving and decision making processes when selecting the
options to implement your strategy. Choose the best options to meet your
criteria in terms of cost effectiveness, ongoing expenses, time frames, and
any social and economic impacts. Analyse any underlying capital expenses
and the cost of developing new methodologies, weighing them against the
escalating financial cost of purchasing pollution permits and carbon
offsets, in addition to the non financial costs such as market reputation.
Implementation plans
Once you have developed your policies, strategies and selected programs
to reduce your organisations’ footprint and increase its sustainability, it is
now time to develop implementation plans and promote them and the
expected outcomes to stakeholders.
Use the Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) cycle to ensure your plans achieve the
results intended and to find ways to make continuous improvements.
Ensure everyone involved in implementing the plans understand their
responsibilities. Consider developing an education program for employees
and customers on sustainability matters and informing your organisations’
external customers of what you are doing. A program like this can be an
excellent marketing tool and another way to increase consumer loyalty.
Many organisations post their environmental programs on their web pages
and detail the progress of the programs in the yearly reports.
Plan Do Check Act
Here is what you do for each stage of the Cycle:
Plan to improve your operations first by finding out what things are going
wrong (i.e. identify the problems faced) and come up with ideas for solving
these problems.
Do changes designed to solve the problems on a small or experimental
scale first. This minimises disruption to routine activity while testing
whether the changes will work or not.
Check whether the small scale or experimental changes are achieving the
desired result or not. Also, continuously check nominated key activities
(regardless of any experimentation going on) to ensure that you know
what the quality of the output is at all times to identify any new problems
when they crop up.
Act to implement changes on a larger scale if the experiment is successful.
This means making the changes a routine part of your activity. Also Act to
involve other persons (other departments, suppliers or customers)
affected by the changes and whose cooperation you need to implement
them on a larger scale or those who may simply benefit from what you
have learned (you may, of course, already have involved these people in
the ‘Do’ or trial stage).
Consult with stakeholders
Identify the stakeholders involved in or affected by your environmental
and resource efficiency management strategy. Consider each stakeholder’s
area of expertise. You may invite stakeholder representatives to
participate in developing strategies. One of the major cornerstones of
sustainable activities is flexibility and openness to new ideas.
Consultation with experts will provide scientific and analytical information.
Consultation with customers or patients, on the other hand, will provide
subjective opinions and ideas.
Consult and communicate with employees so that everyone is aware of the
changes occurring. Employees will support changes more readily if they are
involved in the planning and decision making processes. If not involved
they may resist the changes.
Organisations today are being asked to address an increasingly complex set
of environmental issues. It is in their best interest to get as much
specialised advice as they can. Stakeholders bring a wealth of knowledge
and expertise to solve environmental problems. Consultation with
stakeholders can be instrumental in formulating innovative solutions.
Forward thinking companies now want more meaningful partnerships with
their stakeholders based on a mutual exchange of information, ideas and
suggestions.
Involve your team members
You need to engage your team members if you want them to be proactive
in identifying areas for improved practices and resource efficiency. Team
members who are not engaged are unlikely to look for areas to improve
much less communicate their ideas. There are a number of strategies that
can be employed to encourage participation of team members:
Training – Develop your teams’ skills and knowledge. Educate team
members about resource efficiency and environmental practices. How can
staff be expected to make informed decisions or contribute ideas if they
have little or no understanding of the topic?
Acknowledge and appreciate team member efforts – Notice and respond
when staff contribute and do things well. Appreciation is a powerful
motivator.
Encourage communication – Talk to your co-workers and team members,
encourage them to communicate and share ideas.
Listen - By listening to employees’ ideas, concerns and opinions it shows
you care about them and respect their input.
Consult employees – To develop and involve your team, engage staff
through consultation. Consulting team members reinforces a sense of
togetherness and teamwork.
Create meaning – People need to understand the relevance of doing
something to truly ‘buy into it’.
Challenge employees – We are naturally curious and enjoy solving
problems. Allow staff to learn, problem solve and actively use their mind.
This in turn will develop their skills.
Empower employees - Motivate staff by giving them ownership over their
own work. Empowered staff feel they make a difference in the workplace
and are more likely to come forward with ideas.
Feedback – Provide constructive feedback to team members and ask for
their feedback in return.
Encourage collaboration – Have the team work collaboratively to identify
needs and generate ideas to resolve issues.
Team structure – Teams that are well organised and managed are
characterised by high morale and productivity. Structured teams provide a
supportive working environment.
Team meetings - Meeting regularly can develop team support. Encourage
everybody’s participation and provide a forum that respects an individual’s
perspective on the topic. Use to advantage team diversity to develop a
range of strategies and solutions.
Costing strategies
Businesses often fail to calculate the real financial benefits of resource
efficiency projects. This can result in projects being placed on hold, down
scaled or rejected on an economic basis. Organisations can inaccurately
estimate valuing the project’s financial benefits for two reasons:
1. Failure to identify full cost benefits
ABC will also save costs associated with ordering, purchasing, replacing and
installing light globes as they will have a longer life span
Energy efficient lighting emits more light, therefore reducing the number
of lights needed.