What Is A Carbon Footprint Analysis ?
What Are The Different Sources Of Emissions?
How Do Carbon Credits Work?
What is Life Cycle Analysis?
What is Sustainability ?
What Is An Environment Management System?
What Are The Components of An EMS?
What Is International Environmental Standards - ISO 14001?
What Are The Benefits Of International Certification?
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What Is A Carbon Footprint Analysis ?
A Carbon Footprint is the total amount of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and other Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emitted over the full life cycle of a product or service or in a financial year for a business. A Carbon Footprint is usually expressed as kilograms of CO2 equivalents, which accounts for the different global warming effects of different Gases.
The International Standard ISO 14001 specifies the requirements for an Environmental Management System. The system is designed to enable an Organisation to Develop and Implement Environmental Policy and Objectives.
These include Legal requirements as well as other requirements to which the Organisation subscribes; taking into account significant Environmental Aspects.
It applies to those Aspects that the Organisation identifies as those which it can control and those which it can influence.
The International Standards is applicable to any organisation.
• Establish, Implement, Maintain and Improve an Environmental Management System
• Assure itself of conformity with its stated Environmental Policy
• Demonstrates conformity with the International Standard
EnviroSave works closely with its clients to assist in implementation to ISP 14000 standards.
The Implemented System can be either via “Self Declaration” or through “Independent Certification.”
EnviroSave will arrange for third party audits of Clients Environmental Management System on a regular basis.
The International Standard 14001 promotes the concept of “Continual Improvement”
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What Are The Different Sources Of Emissions?
Cleaner Climate relies on international published data from the IPCC, WBCSD, WRI, UNFCCC, Australian Greenhouse Office Methods and Factor’s Workbook to source and continually update the GHG emissions factors associated with electricity and gas use; air, vehicle and other travel; conferencing, events and accommodation; waste; and embodied energy of Various products.
Business wishing to become certified as part of the low Carbon economy must first define the boundaries of the assessment and/or the aim of their initiative. Put simply, does the business want to reduce its impact or ‘neutralise’ its impact according to global best practices.
Direct GHG emissions are emissions from sources that are owned or controlled by the reporting company e.g. company owned vehicles. Indirect GHG emissions are emissions that are a consequence of the activities of the reporting company, but occur from sources owned or controlled by another company e.g. emissions from the production of purchased electricity (Scope 2) or employee travel on scheduled flights (Scope 3).
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How Do Carbon Credits Work?
Carbon credits are measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide. 1 credit = 1 tonne of CO2. Imagine 1 tonne of CO2 would fill a swimming pool the size of 10 by 25 metres and 2 metres deep.
These credits need to be authentic, scientifically based and comply with a regulatory body for these to be traded with confidence. Verification is essential.
These tradeable carbon credits are then given a monetary value set by the market and can be bought and sold between groups on state, national and international markets.
The owner then has the right to emit 1 tonne of CO2 per credit or trade if not needed. i.e. they have made significant reductions to meet their targets.
Credits may also be retired, meaning taken off the market. They can donate to non-profit groups and are tax deductible in countries where trading is taking place. Large amounts of credits can be bought and retired, thus driving the price up and forcing organisation to decrease their carbon emissions.
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What is Life Cycle Analysis?
"In principle, all decisions that affect or are meant to improve the environmental performance of a product/service should be scrutinized in terms of their life cycle implications. For the environmental perspective, a product's life cycle can be represented as a circular movement that ties together resource extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. In other words, all the phases of organized matter and energy that are in some way related to the making and use of a product can also be linked to an impact on the environment."
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What is Sustainability ?
“Seeing People as Agents of Change”
Some Environmental Education programs are based on the premise that people's actions need to be 'corrected' in order to address environmental and sustainability issues. They use strategies to modify people's behavior and treat people as the problem.
Education for sustainability adopts a different approach. People are viewed as innovative agents of change who can be empowered to create alternatives to the current situation. The focus is building people's capacity to be agents of change. Education for sustainability does not rely on experts to determine how people should behave or how they should think. Rather it promotes the learner's active engagement in decision-making and developing policy, so that there is ownership of the decisions, acceptance of policy and commitment to the actions chosen.
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What Is An Environment Management System?
An Environment Management System (EMS) is a tool for managing the impacts of an organisation's activities on the environment. It provides a structured approach to planning and implementing environment protection measures.
An EMS monitors environmental performance, similar to the way a financial management system monitors expenditure and income and enables regular checks of a company's financial performance. An EMS integrates environmental management into a company's daily operations, long term planning and other quality management systems.
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What Are The Components of An EMS?
To develop an EMS, an organisation has to assess its environmental impacts, set targets to reduce these impacts, and plan how to achieve the targets.
The most important component of an EMS is organisational commitment. For an effective EMS to be developed and implemented, you need commitment from the very top of the organisation, as well as all staff. Following are more examples of components that should be considered when developing an EMS.
Environmental Policy: this is a statement of what an organisation intends to achieve from an EMS. It ensures all environmental activities are consistent with the organisation's objectives.
Environmental Impact Identification: identification and documentation of the actual and potential environmental impacts of an organisation's operations need to be undertaken. This can be achieved through undertaking an environmental audit.
Objectives and Targets: an environmental audit forms the basis of determining an organisation's environmental objectives and targets. An organisation can find benefits in adopting more stringent longer term objectives to encourage it to improve its performance. To continually improve, targets should be regularly reviewed.
Consultation: staff and community consultation should be undertaken before, during and after establishment of an EMS. This is necessary to ensure that all staff are involved in, and committed to the EMS. It can also help to improve public perception of the company, one of the benefits of implementing an EMS.
Operational and Emergency Procedures: all procedures should be reviewed to ensure they are compatible with the organisation's environmental objectives and targets. Any changes should be included with the documentation.
Environmental Management Plan: this details the methods and procedures which an organisation will use to meet its objectives and targets.
Documentation: all objectives, targets, policies, responsibilities and procedures should be documented along with information on environmental performance. Documentation is useful for verifying environmental performance to staff, regulators and the community.
Responsibilities and Reporting Structure: responsibilities need to be allocated to staff and management to ensure the EMS is implemented effectively.
Training: staff should undergo environmental awareness training to familiarise them with their responsibilities for implementing the EMS and with the overall environmental policy and objectives of the organisation. This provides staff with the necessary skill and motivation for the effective implementation of the EMS.
Review Audits and Monitoring Compliance: review audits should be undertaken regularly to ensure the EMS is achieving its objectives and to refine operational procedures to meet this goal. In order to ensure regulatory and other requirements are being met, it is often necessary to undertake regular environmental monitoring.
Continual Improvement: an important component is continual improvement. An EMS comes into its best use when used to review progress towards the targets and objectives set by a company to protect the environment. The procedures set in place to meet these objectives should be constantly examined to see if they can be improved or if more effective systems can be introduced.
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What Is International Environmental Standards - ISO 14000?
The ISO 14000 series, currently being developed by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), is a collection of voluntary standards that assists organisations to achieve environmental and financial gains through the implementation of effective environmental management. The standards provide both a model for streamlining environmental management, and guidelines to ensure environmental issues are considered within decision making practices.
ISO 14001 is the standard for Environment Management Systems. Many large businesses, particularly overseas, have obtained certification under the standard.
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What Are The Benefits Of International Certification?
The benefits of having ISO 14001 certification are mainly realised by large organisations, as Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have a smaller turnover and thus a correspondingly small return on the costs of certification.
Although a fully certified ISO EMS may not be suitable for smaller organisations, it does provide guidelines that assist organisations to consider all the relevant issues, and thus gain the most benefit from their EMS, even without certification. SMEs can therefore use ISO 14001 as a model for designing their own EMS.
Larger Organisations may find certification more valuable when considering the potential trade and market advantages of an internationally recognised and certified EMS. This was a significant factor for companies seeking certification under the ISO 9000 quality assurance standards, and is likely to be a factor in decisions regarding ISO 14001 certification.
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