Task one: Current practices in relation to resource usage
a. Brief overview of your workplace or home office.
The organization is a 300 room hotel located in Sydney’s Central Business District. On average, the hotel creates approximately one kilogram of paper waste every night.
b. Description of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (POEO Act).
The POEO Act is a crucial piece of legislation that was enacted with the aim of enhancing the environment and promoting sustainable development. Through its environmental protection policies, the Act enables the government to implement environmental protection measures and promote sustainable approaches to reduce environmental pollution. Through this, it sets out environmental goals, standards, guidelines and protocols that provide the basis for decisions that affect individuals and businesses. The Act also allows for a unitary licensing arrangement that substitutes the diverse approvals and licenses existing under separate Acts in the areas of waste management, water pollution, air pollution, and noise pollution. Essentially, the POEO Act is the regulatory tool to prevent negative environmental impacts (Legrand et al., 2013).
How it applies to the business.
The POEO Act 1997 applies to all industries. It is the responsibility of businesses to understand how to comply and meet the obligations to avoid penalties. In the hotel business, the employer, employees, and contractors are liable for environmental offenses under the Act. The liability extends to company directors and managers who can be held personally liable for environmental offenses committed by the business. Therefore, it is the responsibility of these parties to minimize harm to the environment and avoid severe penalties. The Act specifically affects waste management practices in the hotel business. With heavy fines for hotel businesses, failing to dispose of waste in a proper manner attracts heavy fines. Therefore, the business disposes of waste safely and legally, recover resources wherever possible and avoids unnecessary consumption of resources. Additionally, the POEO Act gives authorities the discretion to inspect businesses to prosecute or issue fines where applicable. For this reason, the business keeps up-to-date with environmental obligations and exceeds them. Exceeding the obligations does not only allow the business to avoid penalties but also provides the potential for making substantial savings. These savings result from reprocessing, recycling and reusing materials that would otherwise be disposed of as waste. For the business, compliance with the Act is a fact of life for the hotel and risk management training is provided as a means of promoting environmental compliance. Along with the development of an environmental management plan, the business ensures compliance with the increasingly regulated business environment.
c. An environmental review of paper usage
AUDIT REPORT
Resource Audit of: Paper usage (or electricity, fuel, chemicals, etc.)
What work processes and data did you analyze in order to conduct this audit?
(staff surveys, documentation, invoices)
Work processes observed: Observing documenting processes that produce paper as an output or require paper as an input. These included invoice forms and receipt printing.
Actual Data analyzed: Numbers of invoices and receipts printed monthly and the cost of paper used for these activities.
Environmental impacts
(Explain how the use of paper can impact the environment)
The environmental impact of paper is evident at every stage of its lifecycle. Therefore, the environmental impact of paper is significant and meaningful efforts are required to ensure that the environment is preserved (Smerecnik " Andersen, 2011).
Sourcing Impacts
Paper is derived from wood fibers obtained from plantations and natural forests. Millions of trees are consumed for paper production every year. While some of the trees are obtained from ell-managed plantations or forests, a considerable amount is obtained from destructions of old forests and illegal logging.
Production Impacts
Industrial production of paper is responsible for the emission of carbon dioxide from manufacturing processes. Greenhouse gas emission contributes to water, air, and land pollution.
Disposal Impacts
Discarded paper is a large component of landfill sites, accounting for a large percentage of municipal solid waste. Its degradation produces greenhouse gases such as methane create carbon cycle imbalances and water acidification. Toxic chemicals such as sulfur dioxide produced by waste paper contribute to the damage of the aquatic eco-system (Singh et al., 2014).
Stakeholders
(Include who has a direct influence on the organization in sustainable practices)
Organization’s management has a direct influence on sustainable practices through the development of systems, tools, programs and training to ensure that to ensure that the business meets or exceeds sustainability goals.
Resource consumed per month (use average)
(Measure by reams purchased)
Average monthly consumption=120 reams
Purchasing practices
(Explain how you currently purchase paper) Could this be improved?
The business’s ordering simple and is done manually. The procurement department estimates the monthly demand and replenishes inventory according to requests from departments. The process could be improved by increasing automation to make it more efficient.
Paper (or other resource) usage non-compliance (or bad practice) with sustainable business practices
Describe the problem
Explain why it does not comply with sustainable practices
Non-compliance (or bad practice) 1: Issuing paper receipts and invoices
The business uses a large amount of paper for printing documents used at the workplace. As a result, the amount of paper consumed is substantial.
Use of papers receipts and invoices promotes consumption of paper. With the availability of alternatives such as electronic invoices, the continued consumption of paper is an unsustainable practice.
Non-compliance (or bad practice) 2: No re-use or recycling of paper
Old documents are thrown away rather than shred or reused as packing material in shipments.
The practice promotes the continued manufacture of fresh papers and discourages recycling.
Non-compliance (or bad practice) 3: Use of papers with high chlorine content
Chlorine-free papers have a high percentage of recycled content. The business uses papers with high chlorine content.
The use of papers with chlorine promotes the continued manufacture of fresh papers and discourages recycling.
Task two: set targets for improvement
IMPROVEMENTS IN SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICES
Paper Usage
Area
Possible actions/strategy
Objective
Who is involved?
Measurable target (this should have a %)
Target date
Improvement
strategy 1
(Name of improvement)
Automation
Usage of electronic invoices and receipts
To reduce the amount of paper consumed.
Management and employees
Decrease in paper usage
31/12/2018
Improvement
strategy 2
(Name of improvement)
Recycle and re-use
Shred them and reuse unwanted documents
To reduce the amount of paper purchased
Management and employees
Decrease in paper waste
31/12/2018
Improvement
strategy 3
(Name of improvement)
Buy paper that is free of contaminants
Buy chlorine free papers, free of adhesive products
To promote consumption of re-cycled paper.
Management and procurement department
Decrease cost
30/11/2018
Task three: Implement performance improvement strategies
a. Before you implement your sustainable recommendations regarding paper usage, you are required to consult with other stakeholders. Write one paragraph on how you will seek suggestions and ideas about environmental and resource efficiency management from key personnel in your workplace, or specialists. These suggestions enhance your own ideas for improvement.
Surveys and board meetings will be used to seek suggestions and ideas about resource and environmental management. Customizable survey templates will be designed to help in identifying ideas, knowledge and hurdles to sustainability efforts. The meetings will also be designed to capture participants input on sustainability. The two methods will be extremely useful as the results help show exactly how stakeholders embrace and perceive workplace practices. This will allow for the creation of strategies that are better aligned with reality.
b. To apply the Waste management hierarchy in the workplace you need to demonstrate how your performance strategies will be implemented and who is responsible for their implementation. Use the ‘improvement in sustainability practices’ table in the template.
Place the most preferred action first to the least preferred. Include tools and describe strategies that will measure and monitor the effectiveness of the recommended practices. (E.g. key personnel, training, support, communication methods) by filling out the Implement Improvements in Sustainable Paper Practices table on the following page:
© NSW EPA http://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/wastestrategy/waste-hierarchy.htm
IMPLEMENT IMPROVEMENTS IN SUSTAINABLE PAPER PRACTICES
Paper Usage (or other resource)
Area of an improvement strategy
How it will be implemented (What are the steps needs to make your improvement happen)
Who is responsible?
Methods to communicate to work team
Tools/s or strategies to measure and monitor usage
Implementation date
Comments
Improvement Strategy 1
(Name of improvement)
Automation
Usage of electronic invoices and receipts
Adopt the use of technology in transactions
Create systems that allow employees to identify how many print copies they are personally responsible for each month (Radwan et al., 2012).
Management
Employees
Face to face meetings
Memo
Measure the amount of paper consumed per month
1/11/2018
Automation of processes is expected to reduce the amount of paper used for invoices and receipts
Improvement strategy 2
(Name of improvement)
Recycle and re-use
Shred them and reuse unwanted documents
Adopt duplexing to allow printing on both sides of a piece of paper (Stringer, 2010).
Shred papers and re-use for packaging
Encourage staff to recycle and re-use documents
Management
Employees
Face to face meetings
Memo
Measure the amount of waste
1/11/2018
Recycle and re-use is expected to reduce usage of papers
Improvement strategy 3
(Name of improvement)
Buy recycled products
Buy chlorine free papers, free of adhesive products
Management
Employees
Face to face meetings
Memo
Measure the amount of chlorine-free papers purchased
1/11/2018
Sustainable purchase practices are expected to promote sustainable practices
c. To promote your sustainability practice, you must conduct a cost analysis for your manager.
(Add under improvement strategy what the unit you are measuring represents e.g. ream, bin, tablet, wattage, litres, etc.)
YEARLY COSTING ANALYSIS FOR PAPER (or other resource)
Improvement strategy
ORIGINAL USAGE
Units
ORIGINAL COST
$ per unit
ORIGINAL USAGE TOTAL
PROJECTED USAGE
Units
PROJECTED COST
$ per unit
PROJECTED USAGE TOTAL
SAVINGS (ORIGINAL USAGE TOTAL – PROJECTED USAGE TOTAL)
Improvement strategy 1
120 reams
4.29
518.8
50
3.29
164.5
354.3
Improvement strategy 2
120 reams
4.29
518.8
100
3.29
329
189.8
Improvement strategy 3
120 reams
4.29
518.8
120
3.29
394.8
124
TOTAL SAVINGS
668.1
Task four: Monitor performance
a. Now that you have implemented improvements in paper usage, you need to evaluate, review and report to stakeholders on how effective the improvements have been. You must include how you will review your methods (Examples could include invoices, observation etc.), whether you met your sustainability performance outcomes, how you report outcomes (Examples could include newsletters, committee minutes), which stakeholders will get the review report and who is responsible for writing/collating the report. Use the table below to record your review strategies and results.
REVIEW OF PERFORMANCE STRATEGIES
Paper Usage (or other resource)
Improvement strategy
Review/monitoring method/show will you know if your improvement is successful?
Target met or not?
Method of reporting outcomes
Who is responsible to make report?
Stakeholders to get report
Required action
Improvement strategy 1:
Decrease in the amount of paper consumed per month
Target met
Monthly report and organizational newsletter
Manager
Managers, employees and investors
Assess the level of decline in paper consumption
Improvement strategy 2:
Decrease in the amount of waste
Target met
Monthly report and organizational newsletter
Manager
Managers, employees and investors
Assess decline in amount of waste
Improvement strategy 3:
The decrease in the amount of chlorine-free papers purchased
Target met
Monthly report
Manager
Managers, employees, and investors
Assess decline in cost
Task 4b
Include how you will promote
your success strategies within your workplace.
How you can reward
staff for following your recommendations.
Can you suggest a system for staff to contribute their own ideas for sustainability?
Promoting successful strategy implementation will begin with setting a vision and getting buy-in from primary stakeholders. The greater the support from stakeholders, the greater the chances of success. The initiative to address paper reduction requires a significant initial investment to allow the automation of systems. The endorsement by key leadership is critical to achieving the objectives. Approaching managers and executives that are likely to support the efforts and making a case for efficient paper use should be a first step to getting leadership buy-in. In addition, staff training will be conducted to educate employees on the benefits that will accrue to the organization as a result of adopting sustainable practices. An incentive program will be used to encourage sustainable practices and innovative ideas. Staff will be rewarded through recognition on as well as through the issuance of bonus. The bonus will be tied to paper reduction. Staff will contribute to their own ideas through monthly surveys and staff meetings.
Task five: Green procurement
Your manager is very happy with your recommendations and would like to enhance the image of the business by adopting a green procurement strategy.
Design a questionnaire that you can circulate to your suppliers. This questionnaire will allow your firm to compare potential and existing suppliers based on sustainable outcomes. You should include questions based on their products and services, packaging, and their own sustainable practices and policies. Your questionnaire should be at least 10 questions for your organization to assess the viability of doing business with a supplier that also has sustainable initiatives.
Question 1: How does your business minimize the environmental cost of your operations?
Question 2: What is your environmental statement policy?
Question 3: Has your business been involved in any non-compliance with safety or environmental issue?
Question 4: Do you have any programs promoting resource efficiency in place?
Question 5: What strategies are in place to manage and monitor your supply chain regarding environmental issues?
Question 6: What are the total annual greenhouse gas emissions quantities in recent years?
Question 7: What type of shipping or packaging materials do you use?
Question 8: Total amount of solid waste generated from your facilities?
Question 9: What is the fiber content of your product?
Question 10: List any 3rd party certifications for your products?
References
Legrand, W., Chen, J. S., " Sloan, P. (2013). Sustainability in the Hospitality Industry 2nd Ed: Principles of Sustainable Operations. Routledge.
Radwan, H. R., Jones, E., " Minoli, D. (2012). Solid waste management in small hotels: a comparison of green and non-green small hotels in Wales. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 20(4), 533-550.
Singh, N., Cranage, D., " Lee, S. (2014). Green strategies for hotels: Estimation of recycling benefits. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 43, 13-22.
Smerecnik, K. R., " Andersen, P. A. (2011). The diffusion of environmental sustainability innovations in North American hotels and ski resorts. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 19(2), 171-196.
Stringer, L. (2010). The green workplace: Sustainable strategies that benefit employees, the environment, and the bottom line. St. Martin's Press.
