Greening Your Workplace
Some of the most wasteful energy consumptive practices happen in corporate environments. Every time we say or do nothing when we see wasteful practices, we become part of the problem. Our silence is consent.
One effective way to formalise and add momentum to your actions is start a Green Group. Just start with yourself and a name, you may be surprised at the amount of interest you get!
Networking with others in organisations already active with similar issues can be helpful. Considering ideas, approaches and policies already working elsewhere speed progress immensely.
Many of the same actions and choices advocated for our personal lives apply equally to our work environments.
Does your organisation have an Environmental Policy? If not this is an excellent way of formalising some of the environmental activities you are getting underway. A simplified specimen Environmental Policy is available to consider.
Writing an environmental policy is a valuable first step. The challenge comes in getting people to adhere to it! With formal agreement at management level and green groups promoting its implementation on the ground you have a solid start.
Increasingly, larger organisations are being required to substantiate their environmental standing. This requires a whole new level of activity. Environmental Management Systems (EMS) is the accepted mechanism to ensure that standards set can be achieved and tested with periodic auditing to ensure they are met.
1SO 14000 is the series of standards on environmental management which provides the framework for both the environmental management system and the audit programme.
ISO 14001 is the main pillar of the 14000 series and specifies the actual requirement for an environmental management system which the organisation has control over and over which it is expected to influence.
This standard has particular value if your organisation intends to:
The Government's vision for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is "for UK businesses to consider the economic, social and environmental impacts of their activities wherever they operate in the world".
The significant response of businesses to the Asian Tsunami in December 04 / January 05 has made CSR more meaningful.
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