EMP (Environmental Management Program) for an Office

[berseak]

Beside save energy (paper, water , electrical) who have any idea for EMP for office

thanks in advance

 

[Jen Kirley]

Re: EMP for office

I have seen some participate in battery collection for universal waste.

I have also seen participation in emergency drills, if only to call Security should they confront a spill of material or chemical they don't recognize.

 

[t.PoN]

Re: EMP for office

We use office campaigns that has a theme:
for example: we contacted one of the agency and distributed a reusable shopping bag for each employee.
another time: we suggested a day for coming to work by bikes and car pooling incentive (It was AN EPIC FAIL).

 

[Frankie11]

Re: EMP for office

You can also send electronic waste off for recycling.
Swap cleaning products to enviro-friendly versions.

And these aren't suitable for everyone but
- offering non-standard work hours so people can avoid rush hour. (e.g. 7am-4pm; 10am-7pm)
- Teleconference and Skype rather than driving / flying
If there's available space outside - plant trees, water tanks, solar panels.
If you have outdoor lunch / smoking areas - provide appropriate bins to avoid littering.
Sponsor local environmental initiatives.

(It was AN EPIC FAIL).

I'm curious, what happened?

 

[t.PoN]

Re: EMP for office

Deodorant crises!
and the one who used the bike, came two hours before closing and blame it on the HSE department.

the bike rental guy issued an insurance claim for our company and the financial guys went ...... BOOOM

 

[Frankie11]

Ouch! Bet management were reluctant to trial any more improvement programs after that.

 

[kgott]

Beside save energy (paper, water , electrical) who have any idea for EMP for office

thanks in advance

DO an audit of the all the types of waste your office generates. Then see which ones can be reduced without much effort or cost, prioritise them if need be.

Then develop a practical waste management plan for each of the main wastes. Talk ideas with other people on how the main wastes can be reduced, reused or recycled.

Then get management buyin and approval to spend small amounts of money to implement the practical ideas.

Write it and that's your plan. Add evidence of achievements to the plan, eg photos, receipts etc to show the evidence trail that you plan is effective.

The objectives in your might be something like:

to identify and comply with the relevant and appropriate environmental legislation applicable to the office operations.
to reduce average per person waste in each consecutive year
to to take and maintain an inventory of wastes generated in the office
to develop and document a plan for each reducing, reusing or recyling each of the top 3 wastes.
to measure how much waste the company produces each year.

Notice there no objectives containing numbers plucked out of thin air in these objectives.

Notice some are not measurable
SMART objectives while desirable are not always practical.

 

[gstewart]

Even in our factory we are coming up against the wall.
Remembering that you need to be able to measure any environmental targets ( which can cost more than its worth ).
We have saving electricity, saving gas, reducing waste to landfill.
We just got pinged in an audit for not having a suitable plan to achieve targets, but apart from stopping production or investing megabucks in solar power we are stumped. ( apart from little things that are really inconsequential, the led lighting makes only a small dent in the electricity bill ).
We've had ISO 14001 for a decade now, and it was easier to achieve when we were "bad corporate citizens ". The better you are the harder it is to achieve ISO14001. Auditors like it when you cause environmental problems and can produce your corrective action report.
Very frustrating.

 

[Dr. L. Ramakrishnan]

What are the activities in an office ? Management, Administration, HR, Finance, Marketing etc.? Can you bring in one or more KPIs for assessing the environmental sensitivity of decision making by these functions ? For example, one KPI may be "% of budgets approved without environmental clearance". If your objective is to achieve 0% on this KPI, one can have EMPs to achieve this objective. One decision of the management, say to avoid environmentally un-sound practices or product, will have far reaching consequences than many programmes carried out by office staff and manufacturing units. Just imagine that your manager decides to replace all the fluorescent lamps (including CFLs) and incandescent lamps in your office with LED lamps. The environmental impact (positive) of this decision is likely to be more than the cumulative impact of many small projects trying to do the same thing. If your ISO-14001 influences the business strategy of the higher management then you will have opportunities for many EMPs in your office, i.e. many EMPs for each of the functions.