|
What's in this issue
- Another award for training
- How do you prove legal compliance?
- Enviro Action does what it says. We had our audit this week
- Links to articles
Another award for training!
No I’m not just patting myself on the back. This is good for you!
You can feel confident in the training we provide knowing that the training stacks up against others and WINS! We were finalists in almost every category at the SA FarmBis Training Awards and won the award for Distance Education/e-Learning.
Training online is our main activity and people keep giving us awards to prove it is a winning program. You can join a coached group course as part of a supportive group of other businesses (maximum of 10) to build your own simple and effective environmental management system.
We also offer home study courses which are exactly the same training but without the coaching and support. You can do it yourself and save money. If you find down the track that you would really like the coaching and group membership, what you have already paid is taken off the price of the comparable coached module. You can even take on the whole program by yourself with the “Green Your Business: the Do-It-Yourself” training program with comes with the choice of either an all digital product or can include the book and CD. This training program, like all the others, includes full audio files where I talk you through the entire program. This can be a huge time saver if you download it to an MP3 player and listen while you travel or do routine tasks.
Most of our clients, but not all, choose to become certified to the “true green” ISO 14001 and get an external auditor in to check that they really do what they say they do and that that complies with the Standard. Some of our clients build either a two or 3 module system and choose not to have an external auditor. This is fine too! If they want to be audited later, it is easy to take that step. They already have a well established system in place.
How do you prove Legal Compliance?
You start by finding out what legislation applies to you and you or your employees/contractors could be at risk of breaking. This is really important because YOU are the one liable if one of your employees break the law and you have not put procedures in place to prevent that and enforced them.
- How do you prevent this?
- How do you check?
- How do you keep up to date and feed the updates into the system?
- And it needs to be simple or it won’t work.
Preventing breaches needs to be built into the system so that doing things the legal way is the easiest way. Check your procedures and equipment to make sure you have done this. Include reminders in the procedures and checklists and include it in the training PLUS schedule the training so it is not a once off and quickly forgotten. Make sure the supervisors are well trained and aware also.
How do you check this is happening? I recommend doing small process audits at regular intervals and especially of high risk areas and if you have a potential legal compliance issue, this may well be high risk. Check and if there is a problem work out WHY. You are looking for the real reason, the root cause , not just “because Bill can’t be bothered”. If doing it right is the easiest way, then Bill will be bothered so think carefully about what is the easiest way.
How do you keep up to date and feed the updates into the system? Keeping up to date is a matter of identifying some websites, information sources or newsletters that are relevant to your industry that notify you of changes and updates, getting on their lists and then reading them when they come. I always recommend that any relevant changes you get should be fed into the corrective action system so that they need to be acted on and can’t be ignored.
Just remember to keep it simple so that it actually works and check it.
Enviro Action does what it says. We had our audit this week.
We have been an ISO 9001 certified company for 4 years now and I chose iSO 9001 because I felt that the major risk we have is in ensuring customer satisfaction. This year we have added ISO 14001 fully integrated into our system. So this week was quality audit and environmental pre-audit! It is probably good for me to get into my client’s shoes every now and then and go through the auditing process. Even though I am an ISO 14001 auditor, it was helpful having another professional opinion on what I do in my own company and the auditor was very interested in what I teach you guys and how I deliver it.
Believe it or not, I enjoy the opportunity to have someone else take a critical look at my management system and assess how effective it is. Although I mutter at the time, I am glad I have the deadline of the auditor coming to prevent me from putting off things that are important but don’t seem as urgent as some others. Just don't ask what I thought about it on Sunday night! And yes- I passed.
|
Energy costs are going up. Cope by reducing the energy you use, both at work and at home. Turn off things not being used - like the TV, the microwave, the monitor, the phone charger & the kids games. It doesn't reduce your quality of life but certainly reduces your next power bill!
|
Here are the links to the latest articles on the Enviro Jean Blog
Associate Professor Richard Denniss of the Crawford School at The Australian National University has been studying the likely effectiveness of the New Zealand Government’s Emissions Trading Scheme for his paper The NZ Emissions Trading Scheme – why is it so bad and can Australia’s be any better?
“Given the recent consternation in Australia over very small reductions in the price of petrol, ... read more..
One of the small steps on the way to regulating greenhouse gas emissions
The Hon Peter Garrett MP Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts has announced that Australia’s first engine emissions test facility for heavy duty vehicles will be built in Western Australia with $2.76 million in Australian Government funding, announced today by Environment Minister Peter Garrett. Read more.....
This has been an issue for years with people wanting sunlight to grow vegetables and having ‘discussions” between neighbours and planners for the right to sunlight. This has taken on a new twist with the right to collect sunlight on solar panels.
One recent example from Hunter’s Hill in Sydney .. read more...
Savannah Cats to be banned in Australia
Environment Minister Peter Garrett has initiated a review of the potential impacts of hybrid Savannah cats, which could see the cats banned in Australia. Mr Garrett said a draft assessment report had been released to assist considerations about the potential impacts of the cats on the Australian environment and read more....
The South Australian Government and the Property Council of Australia (SA Division) have teamed up to undertake a $2 million project to improve the energy efficiency of commercial buildings in Adelaide’s CBD.
The State Government is to provide $2 million over four years ..read more..
$2.8 Million has been allocated by the Federal Government for this planning. This included mapping coastal urban areas for inundation risks from climate change in as Perth, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.
The project will be implemented in collaboration with... read more..
ISO 14001 is about business management and behavioural change in a business. Product certification is about just the product. It ignores the behaviour and business practices of the company selling the product and the certification process is not as transparent as ISO 14001. Many of the product certifications are little more than a self assessment checklist. ..read more..
Kindest regards
Jean Cannon
|
print 
