I would like from you after you read the report:
- literature review (chapter 2, 450 words),
- Add one or two sentences in the first paragraph of the introduction.
Report Scenario:
- It shall include a discussion of sustainable development and how it is relevant to the sector and this organisation specifically.
- It shall highlight key aspects of the organisation’s activities that would be affected by a ‘sustainable practice’ philosophy.
- It shall identify key cost saving opportunities for the organisation to adopt a ‘sustainable practice’ philosophy.
- It shall indicate possible ‘sustainable practice’ opportunities that have a short return on investment.
- The report shall include examples of best practice amongst competitors.
Executive Summary 350
The last part of the executive summary needs to summarise the recommendations. The CEO needs to be able to read the Executive Summary without reading the rest of the report and make a judgement on the proposal.
Sustainable development is an important aspect of organizational strategic planning. With proper sustainable development in place, there will be changes in the strategies that the organization engages. It is important to have his plan ion the strategic plan and charter of any organization.It is important to assess the strategic positioning of an organization and chart the way forwards towards its development. Adaptive management should be integrated into the management of an organization so that new sustainable development and can be focused.
It is important for Green Company to look into the design basis so that they design adopts good ventilation, and have good insulation. There is also a need to reduce the ways that come from water, energy and waste. This is by ensuring that the company adopt technology that will conserve the environment and enhance recycling. Another strategy that is recommended is having a plan that will eradicate waste of energy and materials in the process of construction.
Green Company needs to focus on the change adoption curve, and plan communication strategy accordingly. At this point the best practices are adopted so that a change coalition will be built. It is also important to build a communication campaign basing on the several campaigns that are in mind. Basing on the issues to be addressed, the group to jointly as a group can be determined. Green sustainability is becoming an important aspect of the economy and more effort is being put into how organizations understand this important aspect of the management and sustainability. Green Company needs to take into place the issues that need to be considered ad have a strategic plan that will meet these procedures. All the business processes need to be assessed and changed in order to have a new way of undertaking the processes. This way, all the procedures that are undertaken in the company will follow a strategic way that will enhance sustainability.
The recommendation to Green Company is to have sustainable development practices in their leadership and management processes. The company should adopt practices that is in tandem with sustainable development. The construction should follow sustainable practices that are recommended the world over. This will reduce the costs that are met through waste. There should also be sustainable waste management strategies integrated into the organization.
- Introduction 250
Strategic change is a serious demand for organisations to survive in a growth competitive environment. Internationalization, economic competitions, growth opportunities, fast changing customer needs and changing technologies are factors that require organisations to re-evaluate their vision. These tangled factors linked with serious concerns for the environment have raised the necessity for sustainable innovations, services and systems. The company needs to understand the processes that they have and their relationship ioth the environment. They should haves in which these processes affect the environment. They will then come up with the changes to be undertaken to take into consideration the proposed changes (Lam et al., 2011).
This report is a transition plan of Greener Company proposed to the CEO. The report will examine the significance of adopting sustainable practices and directs the company to incorporate sustainability into their organisational structure and processes. This will be done through the studying of the development of sustainable practices and illustrates several real world examples. The introduced plan will discuss the opportunities that will be extracted from the new strategy includes the sustainable benefits and cost saving. In addition, it will guide the Greener to approach the ultimate sustainable practices through a five year implementation plan that consist of three stages (Hopwood, Mellor, & O'Brien, 2005).
- Organization Background (200)
Greener is a new construction company which established in 2011 by Chinese and Saudis builders who aim to change the current misconception about green building which is it can be expensive and difficult. Greener follows proactive and innovative methods for sustainable construction of medium scales like homes and commercial building. The fundamental goal is to deliver green building to the public with high quality and affordable prices. Within the next five years Greener’s services will approach its optimal level through delivering buildings which founded with sustainable methods this includes:
- Design Fundamentals: The core element of the buildings will be designed correctly with the climate, insulated properly, well sized and appropriately ventilated;
- Minimizing energy, water and waste: waste sorting and recycling, gray water systems, heating and cooling design, glazing and natural light will be designed with environmentally friendly solutions;
- Minimizing waste, water and energy during construction: a waste plan will be implemented that meets sustainability requirements. It will cover ordering materials, stormwater management and reducing the use of energy during the construction process.
- Mission Statement
With the strategic change in Greener a new mission statement will be adopted which will be displayed on all Greener official correspondences and states as follows:
“Our aim is to be part of those who work to keep our planet sustainable and healthier place for all creatures, our way that we are going to contribute through it is to use our experience in construction and deliver affordable sustainable friendly environment buildings to the community”.
- Sustainability and environment policy statements
- Reduction of operational carbon emissions: which is by delivering the minimum or zero carbon buildings, use energy performance certificates to make an accurate comparison of the energy efficiency and follow renewable heat incentive policy;
- Building Assessment: Develop a methodology to assess the environmental impacts of construction activities and buildings
- Waste: Reuse and recycle construction and demolition waste, which can reach to 70%;
- Materials: Use “The Green Guide To Specification” to make the best environmental choices when selecting construction materials.
- Literature Review of Sustainable Practice (300 words)
- Construction Sustainable Practice
Sustainable construction involves a mechanism that integrates the building of a good and healthy environment for the good of the future. This entails both the internal and external design of the building. They should be energy efficient. There is a need to have sustainability in the construction process. They should be constructed in such a way that they are efficient in energy efficiency. The process of having energy efficiency is to have structure integrated with good practices of conserving energy. Materials should be protected by ensuring that they are bought just before they are used. It has been found out that materials that are stored for a long time before they are used are not good for building. The materials that are stored for too long will be spoilt and will tie other resources that could have been used for other things. Sustainable construction features help in having buildings that will be able to change well with changes in the climate. The sustainable construction design should take this into place (Xuanhui, 2009).
2.2 Opportunities for sustainable Practice
There are opportunities that come when integrating sustainability in the construction practice. One of the opportunities is to minimize waste in the process of construction. It has been found out that 13% of waste is materials which have not been used. This is an opportunity that can be taken advantage of the by Green Company. One way that this can be utilized is to have suppliers of materials who are able to exchange for the extra materials. Packaging forms a big part of the waste. There should be ways in which the packaging of e materials can be utilized to observe this practice of waste. There is a regulation which has been put in place to manage site waste. This is The Site Waste Management Plans Regulations (SWMP). There is a need to track the waste that is moved from the building. The site conditions should be improved so that there is reduced damage of materials.
There is also the cost of cost saving that will be achieved by practicing sustainable practices. With the development and integration of sustainable development procedures, there will be savings of cost because of the saving on waste that could have been lost. There will also be new methods that will save on cost-effective materials for building.
- Strategies 300
Recent studies have shown that human consumption far exceeds available resources. It says that each person on Earth now needs a third more land to provide the person need than the planet can give. The activities of governments, industries and individuals are responsible for economic, environmental and social pressures. Greener introduced several strategies to achieve sustainable developments, which involves three essential goals; environmental and social responsibility and economic success. These strategies have been selected carefully in order to reach Greener to its goals.
Strategy 1: Adopt adaptive Management Approach
Peterson notes, ecosystems are continually changing due to internal and external forces. To overcome these changes, management must adapt continuously. Adopting this approach means that Greener management robust decision making in the face of uncertainty, with a target to minimizing uncertainty over time through system monitoring..
Strategy 2: Adopt emulation of nature approach
Janine described biomimicry as the conscious emulation of life’s genius. In a biomimetic world, we would manufacture the way animals and plants do, using sun and compounds to produce totally biodegradable fibers, ceramics, plastics, and chemicals. Greener would learn a great lessons that are based on the emulation of nature, these include:
- Use waste as resources
- Diversify and cooperate to fully use the habitat
- Gather and use energy efficiently
- Optimize rather than maximize
- Use materials sparingly
- Don’t foul the nest
- Don’t draw down resources
- Shop locally
- Run on the information
- Remain in balance with the biosphere
Strategy 3: Adopt an eco - efficiency approach
Eco-efficiency approach is to deliver competitive priced goods and services that satisfy human needs and improve the quality of life and in same time increasingly minimizing ecological pressures and resource intensity during the product life cycles to level proportional with the earth’s assessed carrying capacity. Therefore, it is believed that adopting eco-efficiency approach will assist greener to achieve environmental, social and economic benefits (see Appendix A).,
Since the first building in China was awarded a gold rating by the internationally recognized Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system in 2005, green building's popularity has grown in China (Nelson, 2012). China working as a country which has the largest population and energy consumption, the government is extremely encouraging the construction company to plan sustainable buildings. The following are three typical Chinese energy saving green buildings which show the necessity of adapting sustainable techniques in Chinese market.
1. Hangzhou Green Building Science and Technology Museum (HSTM)
Figure 1: HSTM aerial view
HSTM has an energy saving rate of 75.5% and the energy consumption is one forth comparing to other similar buildings. Based on Hangzhou’s weather and climate characteristics: rainy spring; wet and hot summer; cool autumn and dry and cold winter, more than ten energy saving techniques have put into use, which can be divided into active and passive practices. The following figure is the technical integration of HSTM.
Figure 2: Green techniques of HSTM
The passive energy saving techniques include:
- Reasonable window-wall ratio and the use of new recyclable material—titanium-zinc panels and terracotta panels
- The 15 angles of inclination of the building to produce the self-sun-shading system.
- The passive natural ventilating system by adopting building components such as an underground duct - line; the stack ventilation; atriums and roof vent stack.
- Natural lighting system such as the atrium lighting; side windows lighting and Solatube sunshine lighting techniques.
- Rainfall collection and recycled water systems for reducing water consumption.
The active energy saving practices include:
- Based on the outdoor weather and degree of exposure, the sun shading system will automatically control the shutter rotating.
- The intelligent lighting system.
- The new temperature controller adapting the geothermal resources and separate the temperature and humidity control.
- The new elevator system which uses recycled materials.
- The new building intelligent control system which monitors and adjusts the indoor temperature and humidity and the outdoor climate. According to the information received, automatically control the operation of devices and calculating the energy consumption of different equipment.
- Solar, wind and hydrogen power combination system for electricity supply.
When this project finished, this building passed Chinese three-star green building assessment and it is the only one in Zhejiang province. There are some statistics after the museum being put into use:
According to the feedbacks of the first two years, the total electricity consumptions decrease 36 % ( first year) and 48 % ( second year) relatively. In the electricity supply, wind power accounts for 6 %; hydrogen power takes up 5 % and the solar system supply 22 % of the whole consumption. The indoor devices energy consumptions decrease 22 % and 29 % relatively. The following chart and figure show the benefits comparing to similar buildings:
Chart 1: The comparison of energy consumption and recycle between HSTM and normal museums (KWh/m2)
Figure 3: The components of energy saving
Challenges: Although HSTM is a typical green building landmark in China, however, some limitation exists including extremely complex and complicated techniques and the difficulty of implementation in normal buildings. It is a competitive building with less consideration of applicability.
2. Soochow Landsea International Block (SLIB)
SLIB is a commercial resident community which regards low energy cost and high comfort living level as targets and combine indoor acoustic environment system; indoor luminous environment system; indoor wind environment system; efficient external thermal insulation system; renewable resource recycling system; rainwater recycling system and central hot water system all together. The energy saving rate reaches 69%. SLIB is honored with the “Best Application of building Technology Award in The Green Asia Habitat Awards 2007”.
Figure 4: The honorary credential (Hongbing, 2009)
The three main theme of this project is: constant temperature, constant humidity and constant-flow oxygen. In order to achieve this several techniques are applied in this project:
(1). Ground-source heat pump system
Absorb heat energy from the superficial earth zone with constant temperature directly. In the winter, the system will transfer the heat into the building. In addition, the system transfers the heat through the pump to the superficial earth zone. The effect of this system is impressive and save vast energies.
(2). The heat recycling system
In this project, the air conditioner system can achieve the redundant heat recycling and fleshing indoor air. In summer, the sensible heat effectiveness reaches 69% and the wet effectiveness is 67%. Moreover, in the winter, the sensible heat effectiveness and wet effectiveness are both 71%.
(3). External sunshade system
Aluminium alloy external sunshade will be installed outside each window. The sunshade rate can reach 80% which not only defines the direct radiation but also indirectly decrease the pressure of the indoor refrigerating system.
(4). Anti-noise system
The external walls, windows and all the framework boards will apply the effective anti-noise practices to produce a quiet internal living environment. In addition, designers pay attention to reducing the wastewater noise by designing a new waste water drain-off system.
(5). The solar heating system.
The heating water system is the combination of solar heating system and a gas heating system. In summer, the main power for hot water supplying would be solar system and when the weather turns bad, the gas system will give a hand. In winter, gas system will act as the main heat supplier and solar system will act as cooperators. The collector area of the solar system is 127.5 m2/unit and the system has 127 units. The heat collecting efficiency would be 0.5 (Tupper, Chowdhury, Klotz, & Fries, 2012).
(6). Rain water recycling system
This system is designed to help collect rain water from the roofs and surface of the ground to irrigate the landscape trees and fountains in the gardens. The untraditional rain water use ratio is 10.63% and the rain water quality will be tested regularly.
Opportunities: From this project, it can be seen that the designers care more about the living comfort of the whole building, and apply effective green building techniques which is not as complicated as HSTM. Obviously, that is what can be learned by the company which just steps in the sustainable construction (Hongbing, 2009).
3. City Power Union Building (CPUB)
CPUB is a commercial office building whose energy saving rate is 62.4%. CPUB is the integration of the previous projects. Contractors not only apply basic sustainable techniques but also design specific practices which suit the native weather and environment (Mohamad et al., 2011).
Figure 5: The design sketch of CPUB
Several specific techniques have been put into use in this project:
(1). The new brick in the external wall
Figure 6: New brick for heat shielding (Guan, 2009)
In consideration of the location of this project, heat shielding and dehumidification would be critical factors that designers need to concern. The new brick can stop and hold the hot air or moisture inside to prevent the heat transfer in the summer. Moreover, in the winter it will help to keep warm indoor (Nelson, 2012).
(2). Self-sunshade system and solar system
Part of the roof will be covered with solar panels to produce electricity and daily hot water for the whole office building to reduce the energy consumption.
The self-sunshade system will base on the sunshine direction, automatically change the shade direction in the summer and let the sun shine through in winter (Muench, 2010).
Figure 7: Sunshade and solar system of CPUB
The solar system will produce the 60℃ hot water for all offices as well which save electricity 231kwh every day and 84,315Kwh per year ( Guan, 2009).
Except the sustainable techniques which are applied in the project, some construction method contributes to this green building as well. For example, all the sanitary fixtures have been installed water saving plant; part waste of construction will be recycled to produce the landscape facilities. Try to use the natural resources to replace the energy consuming equipment (Biggart, 2013).
Figure 8: The waste brick recycling
Opportunities: from this project it can be learned that: not only the sustainable techniques will help to reduce energy consumption, but also the construction method will play a critical role (Xia et al., 2013).
- Implementation
Compared with other sustainable construction companies, Greener has less competitive power in the following areas:
- Staffs’ sustainability norm - As Greener is a new sustainable construction company, the overwhelming majority of the staffs are recruited very recently, therefore, the company’s culture and sustainability norm need to be established and acquired in the following period.
- Technology – The lack of knowledge of application of renewable technology
- Experience and reputation in sustainable construction projects – Because the green is new founded, the company lacks such project experience.
Thus, the Greener nowadays pays close attention to the sustainability developing, to apply these particular strategies and technologies in the future construction projects is necessary for the company to transform the business from an original type to an eco-friendly, sustainable and modern healthy type, which will bring about huge benefits for the whole company system. In particular, the Greener will use the recycle technology to reduce basic construction waste, a new generation of “green” technology to decrease the contamination of harmful gas, new type of circulatory system to save the consumption of water, integrated solar systems to save the energy consumption and so on. The ultimate target is to achieve the sustainable development of both internal and external. In a word, these steps are aimed to achieve:
- Prospects for new clients
- Maintain and develop relationships with existing key customers
- Optimize the company operations
- Improve the personnel structure
- Create and maintain a positive public reputation, grow the transparency, accountability and steam-line regulatory compliance.
(Hespenheide, E., K. Pavlovsky, and M. McElroy, M. 2010. "Accounting for sustainable performance." Financial Executive 26 ( 2): 52–54, 57–58.)
In the first stage, Greener will focus on establishing staffs’ norm of sustainability, specifically, to launch a series of suitable training programs to all staffs, which integrate adaptive management approach inside. These particular training programs will also contain a variety of validation processes, which make sure the staffs have a comprehensive understanding of the sustainability methodologies. The whole training process will be illustrated as below:
After establishing the awareness of the sustainability, the next stage is to enhance the whole company sustainability technology and construction design capability. This process will focus on the hardware upgrading, meanwhile, suitable training process will also be provided to particular staffs which concentrate on the technique level. Furthermore, this particular stage will involve the R&D of the application of the world latest sustainable ideals and devices, to combine and integrate these technologies and ideals in the future construction projects. Under this circumstance, Bio-mimicry approach and the Eco - efficiency approach will apply to achieve the sustainable project success. During this stage, Green will also foster good relationship with other world leading sustainable construction companies to seek for the cooperation and information exchange. The relationship of this stage will also be revealed in the following diagram.
The third stage is monitoring and reviewing process. It is necessary for Greener to monitor the ongoing implementation process, and design suitable risk management plan to gear toward the existed and potential risks. As well as the reviewing process is aimed to assess the performance of the previous stages in which to identify the disadvantages and develop the opportunities, meanwhile, the assessment also assists the executives to consider about the priorities and objectives dynamically which keeps the approach running as a system rather than a plan. Improving process also occurs in this stage, the identified disadvantages and opportunities will fully consider by the Greener’s executive management level which will help the executive management team to design suitable reaction.
5.1 Schedule plan
The total schedule plan of the first five years will be examined below:
The Gantt chart clearly explains the first five years schedule of Greener’s activities. The training programs will last for approximately 2 years in which aim to consolidate the knowledge of sustainability and use adaptive management approach in the company, after comprehensively understand of the sustainability norm, R&D process will continue the rest of years. Through the corporation and information exchange with other sustainable construction companies, Greener will grow up rapidly and be able to combine and integrate renewable technology for the future construction projects. Meanwhile, monitoring and reviewing will be provided from time to time which can significantly reduce the risks and improve the whole operation instantly (Ortiz, Castells, & Sonnemann, 2009).
5.2 Cost and Performance
The total cost and performance line chart examined below which estimate the overall situation of first five years.
The overall estimation of the cost and performance illuminates the cost, company performance and profits as three lines, each of the line represent a trend in the future 5 years. At the start of the period, the process will require a large amount of investment, but will rapidly decrease in the following years. The following table will illustrate the detail elements of the overall cost:
Source: Fictitious data, for illustration purposes only
5.3 Risk management plan
Generally, this part has discussed about the five years implementation plan, which clearly identify the objectives of the sustainable development both internal and external, this part also involves time, cost, performance estimations and risk management plan in which to highlight the confronting challenges.
References
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Hopwood, B., Mellor, M., & O'Brien, G. (2005). Sustainable development: mapping different approaches. Sustainable development, 13(1), 38-52.
Lam, P. T., Chan, E. H., Chau, C. K., Poon, C. S., & Chun, K. P. (2011). Environmental management system vs green specifications: How do they complement each other in the construction industry?. Journal of Environmental Management, 92(3), 788-795.
Mohamad Kamar, K. A., Abd Hamid, Z., Ghani, M. K., Egbu, C., & Arif, M. (2011). Collaboration Initiative on Green Construction and Sustainability through Industrialized Buildings Systems (IBS) in the Malaysian Construction Industry.International Journal of Sustainable Construction Engineering and Technology,1(1), 119-127.
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Ortiz, O., Castells, F., & Sonnemann, G. (2009). Sustainability in the construction industry: A review of recent developments based on LCA.Construction and Building Materials, 23(1), 28-39.
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