Developing a workplace sustainability policy
Practice Task 1
Items included in a sustainability policy
Prestige printing and office supplies is one of the leading companies globally and especially in Australia. Regardless of its headquarters being in Australia, its location is in a regional town that has a university and populated with large private and public schools. Prestige printing and office supplies have shown economic development in the past years. Talking of the type of growth, there are three items included in its sustainability policy namely social development, environmental protection and economic growth. When the company is including the items, it takes into account the industry, in which it operates, nature of the business, organization’s energy demands, scope of the policy or simply the intended extent and current environmental footprint. Social development has two themes that are a green economy in the sustainable development’s context and eradication of poverty as well as sustainable development institutional framework.
As for the trade union strategy, the definition of green economy given by the GEI resembles that given by ITUC pointing out that a green economy where Prestige printing and office supplies operate in will introduce decent and green jobs, which is a positive thing especially for the company’s impact on the society. The only way forward to a sustainable development is through decent and green jobs. There are several strategies in place for all these to take place. They include trade unions building and strengthening at all levels of the company for the purposes of political mobilization. Green purchasing, a green office program, waste management and recycling as well as triple bottom line reporting will be items the company should consider.
Introduction of the National Greenhouse and energy-reporting act
Abbreviated as NGER, the National Greenhouse and energy-reporting scheme came into being because of the Howard government in the year 2007 following concerns to providing accounting and data relating to gas emissions from greenhouses and consumption of energy as well as production. The main objectives of the scheme are to underpin the mechanism of carbon price, inform the policymaking and the public of Australia, meet international reporting obligations of Australia and provide one national reporting framework. The latter is for the purposes of energy reporting as well as emissions reporting.
Impact of the act
This act has great impact on Prestige printing and office supplies as it underpins the carbon price mechanism. The impact of the act was evident after its administration by the energy and greenhouse data officer who replaced the department of climate change and efficiency of energy in 2012. It is from there that the clean energy regulator took on the role and every greenhouse company had to comply and do, as they required.
Prestige printing and office supplies began giving information to the Australian public, something it had not done before since its establishment. It is because of the act that the company cannot have the formal oversight of the National Greenhouse and energy reporting as the department of climate change and energy efficiency retained the same. It also has the responsibility of progress tracking against the target of Australia but under Kyoto protocol. In Australia, there are two different organizations namely the department of climate change and the department of energy efficiency particularly affected by the legislation because the department basing them on consultation with industry stakeholders and the public makes the amendments.
Strategies used in Prestige printing and office supplies to promote and communicate workplace sustainability policy
Prestige printing and office supplies used different strategies to promote and communicate the new policy and procedures to the two thousand employees located in one building. These strategies include merging networks for voice and data traffic and delivering both networks efficiently through one infrastructure. Such a strategy has only been in use once during the summer Olympic Games. The strategy helps in minimizing waste through the reduction of the amount of spare equipment needed for service maintenance levels should there be a technical failure. This strategy has also helped the company and its employees lower carbon emissions and energy consumption associated with the logistics and support field.
The company collaborating with other companies like Marian group of companies has developed new solutions to help in bringing new greenhouses to farms and customers across Australia. The company has also come up with a new standard of procurement that encourages low carbon innovation among the green house suppliers and users. It has also calculated the carbon footprint of the greenhouse services that it is providing to the Australian farmers and has changed from using general waste contractor to a company that specializes on recycling thus increasing the rates of recycling.
Strategies to recommend for ongoing awareness of the initiatives put in place
Several strategies would work for an ongoing initiative. These include improving the communication system whereby if there are two channels for communication like data and telephone services come together to minimize traffic and waste which mostly comes from spares. Introduction of low energy networks could also work for an ongoing initiative. This will provide efficient and on demand services for virtual computing for farmers and customers.
Innovative use of mobile capturing devices, like cameras and recording equipments as well as holding discussions on the development of all pieces face to face without having to take long distance flights will do good for an ongoing initiative.
Key performance indicators
Commonly abbreviated as KPI’s, they refer to the measures that provide the managers and stakeholders with information that enables them to understand the performance level of an organization. The indicators should link to the strategic objectives therefore help in monitoring how well the business executes its strategies. Active awareness program for the purposes of enthusiasm, incentives for ideas to improve the environmental footprint of the organization and green planning days as well as including annual tree-planting day or event are the key performance indicators put in place for the employees. They are all important especially to an environment friendly company like Prestige printing and office supplies. The goal of Prestige printing and office supplies to create a sustainable low carbon BT will easily come along if the employees put more effort and support across the business.
Green initiative: a timely paper program
Outcomes expected
Reduce wastage of paper which increase the carbon dioxide emissions
Improve on profits because the company uses less papers and less paper bins
Maximize the use of each paper contributing to more recycling thus energy and environment conservation
Cleaner environment because of the less paper waste in the dust bins0724605362
Activities to be undertaken
Both employers and employees to use both sides of a sheet paper
Engage in making notebooks out of used paper or waste paper
Place used papers in the recycling bins to create a central point of collecting the waste paper
responsibilities
The responsibility lies in the hands of the employees and employers who best utilize the papers used in the company
Assessment activity 3
Implementing the workplace sustainability policy
Theory review and application
Managing the development of a procedure to implement a workplace sustainability initiative such as recycling would be very easy because all one would ensure is that there are good recycling bins put in place. As a manager, I would make sure that there is no buying of new papers before the waste papers finish. I would ensure that all employees and stakeholders make diaries from waste papers (lynch, 1993, p.57).
An environmental initiative like a wise program is easy to carry out. First, the staff has to separate food scraps, plastics, tins, bottles, paper and cardboard into different bins from where they will pick each material to use in the initiative. Those making diaries will go to the paper bins and select the required papers to use then move on to the cardboards to make the notice boards and tins to make flower vessels.
The three mechanisms of for communicating procedures include green purchasing, a green office program and waste management as well as recycling. I would ensure that everyone understands the procedures by involving them in every step of the procedure for the mechanisms. When everyone understands the procedures, implementing them becomes easy for all the employees. I would use strategies like firing those violating the initiatives and awarding the best implementers in order to ensure that there a continuous implementation of a continuous improvement cycle for the purposes of sustaining the environment. The three examples of internal recording systems to measure the environmental progress include reporting, recording systems and quality assurance where each one of them portrays the effort put by the employees. There is a link between reporting, recording systems and quality assurance. They all contribute to one goal, which is sustaining and implementing a continuous improvement cycle (lynch, 1993, p.67).
Part B
Developing procedures requires input from those close to the areas where the policy affects and require plenty of consultation. Procedures should be continuous meaning that there should be an update to reflect policy effectiveness and efficiency. Continuous improvement is an approach with five steps namely commitment and policy, implementation, planning, review and improvement as well as measurement and evaluation. Developing and maintaining records is an important thing in that it monitors and reviews the process for a continuous improvement. There is a requirement of appropriate recording systems and tools for the purposes of information recording.
There should be production of relevant reports from the already placed recording systems. In the process for environmental protection as an item, there has been no establishment of the concept of green economy. This is an economy where there is shaping of sustainable production and cleaner technologies. This is possible because of social protection, key principles of social justice and decent work.
Just like the second regional conference resolution points out, nuclear energy sustainability remains in question and the Australian government should continue with the feasibility study regarding the use of nuclear energy. The company has come up with an automated field service management as a strategy. This provides real time information and scheduling to people in the farms thus reducing journeys related to carbon dioxide emissions by up to 30%. The company has all these strategies to help in reducing expenses and at the same time communicating the new policy to employees. The company also came with a strategy to introduce a sheet of paper from where the employees can write on both sides thus minimizing on costs and waste.
References
Lynch, R. & Werner, T. 1992. Continuous Improvement: teams and tools. QualTeam. Atlanta.
Victorian government. 2009. Continuous improvement framework. Available at:
www.health.vic.gov.au/pcps/downloads/continuouspdf
Australian Government. 2009. Department of the environment, water, Heritage and the Arts Environmental Management Systems. Available at:
www.environment.gov.au/land/management/ems/index.html
KPMG. 2008. sustainability reporting: a guide. Available at: www.kpmg.com.au/portals/0/mkpg_g100_sustainabilityRep200805.pdf
