The Best Environmental Management Practices - Essay Example

?REFLECTIVE PORTFOLIO s Introduction It is normal to find individuals spendingtheir inactive time offering services to distinct organizations and institutions that offer charity work. Volunteering is essential in building an individual carrier and sometimes acts as a way of giving back to the community. Volunteering is optional that is why some do it while others do not. Volunteering involves an individual engaging in a variety of activities such as, saving animals, making others feel cared for and involving in environmental activities. Personally, I opted to volunteer with the National Society of clean Air (NSCA) organization. It is an organization that enhances the protection of environment, and advocates for clean air in the world. Its main objective is to see reduced pollution of land, air, water, noise and other harmful contaminants. In my entire time of volunteering, I was able to create a significant impact on various communities through the creation of awareness on the importance of keeping our environment healthy. Communities in which I served were able to understand the importance of vegetation cover and disposing of wastes in an environmentally friendly manner. The planet is contaminated and without any environmental efforts to return to its natural state then people will perish over time. Our environment is suffering from the impacts of global warming. There is a need to reduce the amount of green house gases emitted into the air through the adoption of cleaner production technologies and increasing on the vegetation cover. Evaluating the contribution of volunteering in meeting the organization objective Support from volunteers and organization leadership are fundamental in the success of an organization (Warner et al 2011, p.391). Without the two, then successful movements in sentiment transformation in various levels such as political, personal or professional cannot thrive. In order for the continual culture of improvements environmentally, volunteers at the community level are an essential commodity. Volunteers are effective in providing adequate service and remarkably efficient in reducing the organization spending costs. They always offer their services free of charge (Levine & Agostino 2010, p.711). However, because of their increased numbers, organizations have not been able to accommodate them. Non-profit organizations such as National Society of clean Air have been able to utilize skilled volunteers in meeting the needs of the community and meet its goals and objectives. Volunteers in environmental organization have been at the forefront advocating for Natural resource management (Measham &Barnett 2008, p.538). They are tasked by the organization to pass information to the community on the importance of managing their resources effectively. This is through the development of brochures that have information on natural resource management and holding campaigns where communities are able to air their views. The interaction between the community and volunteers enable an organization to identify loopholes that exists and come up with strategies that can enable them fix the problem. Through volunteering, the volunteers have been able to acquire necessary skills that make them sell like hot cake in the job market. Some have become environmental activists. They advocate for policies that will enhance the improvement and point fingers at those organizations that are not operating in an environmental sound manner. The volunteers in the organization involve themselves in activities such as botanical specimen collection to enhance their understanding of ecology. They also involve themselves in monitoring and evaluation programs. This develops their mind in criticizing where things are not right. Through the volunteers, the organization has been able to achieve its aim of protecting the environment and ensuring that the air individuals’ breath is clean. Through sensitization, the community and other stakeholders have been able to understand the importance of managing wastes in ways that are appropriate. They have understood the importance of waste separation at source and recycling of waste in managing resources that are scarce. The industries have reduced their emissions to the air through adoption of cleaner production technologies and treating of the effluents before disposing them to the environment. Evaluating the service delivery of the organization, I am volunteering for National Society for Clean Air (NSCA) is an environmental protection agency. It incorporates various stakeholders in meeting its objectives. The stakeholders include sectors such as, the private, public and voluntary. They work in partnership in promoting an approach that is innovative and balanced. These approaches help in environmental issues understanding and coming up with a solution. NSCA is remarkably powerful and active in various field of the environment such as, maintaining the quality of air and land, noise regulation, managing of the local environment and regulation of industries. It has a decade experience in areas of campaigning for the environment, providing public information, developing of educational resources and formulation of policies. In addition to that, it takes part in developing proposals for the government, industries, agencies on issues related to its area of jurisdiction (“National Society for Clean Air” 2005, p.1). It drafts legislations that address matters that are technical in nature and issues that are national. It is also active in organizing seminars and workshop where individuals get trained and briefed on issues concerning the environment. The non-governmental organization has its own strength and weaknesses. In their agenda of ensuring that the various organizations and agencies comply with environmental regulations, there are obstacles they encounter. For example, the difficulty of conducting research on environmental corporate Responsibility (Rahman & Post 2012, p.307). The organization existing tools of measuring ECSR need data that is primarily collected. In addition to that, they have limited access to proprietary databases. Utilization of metrics that are performance based is of significant in the provision of significant information. They enable comparisons across firms and provide vital information to both stakeholders and decision makers. However, the weakness of the method is that, the method used to compare environmental performances between various firms are nuclear thus resulting to information complexities, public confusion and skepticism (Ilinitch etal 1998, p.399). Despite the organization weaknesses, it has its own strengths. Being a proposal developer for various agencies on matters touching on environmental issues, it has an upper hand of ensuring that the regulation are met and those that do not adhere to the regulation face the consequences. It has the ability of making the industries internalize the cost of pollution via cleaning up the environment and meeting the costs of individuals affected by their pollution. For instance, if an industry effluent pollutes the river thus affecting the downstream source of livelihood, then the organization has the capability of ensuring the industry cleanses the river with its own costs. Through seminars and organizations held, the organization can use it as a means of informing various stakeholders on the importance of maintaining a clean and healthy environment. Since information is power, people will be more knowledgeable and will enhance the development of a culture that values the protection of the environment. This will be adopted from generation to generation and the environment will regain its natural state. People will understand the importance of having a sustainable development where people utilize the resources without compromising the future generation in meeting their own needs. Recommendations for the organization National Society for clean Air (NASC) as an environmental organization, need to come up with various environmental management systems (EMSs). The systems will aid in the management and identification of the potential environmental impacts from industrial and commercial operations. Their main function is primarily to control internal management. However, if developed and implemented in a perfect way, they have the potential of protecting the environment in both unrestricted and restricted areas. An environmental management system not only ensures environmental regulation and law compliance, but also provokes individuals to improve their performance environmentally (“Environmental Management system” 2000, p.1). In order for the National Security for Clean Air to improve on its environmental compliance and performance, the following key elements should be considered, while developing the environmental management system, it should be founded upon a clearly documented policy that is communicable. The policy should highlight the commitment the organization has towards a clean and healthy environment. With the system in place, continuous monitoring and evaluation should be done to ensure environmental laws and regulation compliance by various agencies. In addition to that, the organization should ensure voluntary undertakings and environmental requirements are incorporated by the system. For instance, the environmental management system should present a means of identifying; explaining and communicating all undertaking that are voluntarily and environmental requirements to various stakeholders of the organization. The stakeholders are such as the organization employees, contractors and on-site service providers. They are an essential component of the organization as it depends on them to meet all the requirements. Environmental requirements comprise fundamental documents such as agreements that are enforceable, permits, laws and regulations and statutes. On the other hand, voluntary undertakings are such as, principles of environment or a culture that an industry or organization adopts to guide on its performance. The organization should ensure it has adequate and skilled human resource management to meet its targeted objectives. It can incorporate the volunteers into its human resource team, as they are well conversant with the organization activities. In decision-making stakeholders should be considered and allowed to air their pressing needs. The organization should ensure that there is sustainability embedding within the organization. Sustainability as a concept is very complex and dynamic and exhibits no universal definition agreement on the subject. However, definition subjection to vital scrutiny is paramount. This is because outcomes, policies and practices emerge from definitions. Organizations have the capability of integrating various aspects of sustainability in their business. For example, social sustainability, environmental and economic sustainability. The organization should understand that sustainability outcome assessing is a task that is complex. There exist indicators that are measurable for environmental and economic sustainability dimensions but none for social sustainability (Banerjee 2011, p.720). The complexity of the social dimension is because of its coverage on issues such as poverty, inequality in income levels, sanitation and health care access, education and globalization effects on development economically. In summary, an organization that incorporates the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, social growth and environment), aims at achieving shareholder long-term value. A corporation or organization that is civil aims at building objectives that are social and environmental in its business via internal competences and values development within private enterprise limits. Hence, issues that are social or environmental should be perceived as opportunities that triggers growth only for those businesses not regulated rather voluntarily pursued within the limitations of an enterprise that is private. If all the recommendations above are put into practice, then the organization will ensure the maintenance and cleanliness of the environment. The industries and commercial business will have no problem of following the laid down regulations and rules. Conclusion The main objective of any portfolio (academic) is to display an individual work. Essay portfolios enable the reader to review an individual’s work and analyze the content. The below portfolio is my internship objective and what I was able to learn during the one year period. Being an environmental ambassador, National Security for Clean Air was the perfect organization for my volunteer program. Through the organization, I was able to learn the laws and regulations on environment and measurers undertaken to protect and promote environmental sustainability. I was given the chance to take part in implementation of organization programs. Interaction with the community and other stakeholders enabled me to view environmental challenges in a critical perspective. Through the holding of environmental forums, I was privileged to share my knowledge on environment and get ideas from various expertises. The volunteering program exposed me to a wide field of professionals. These enhanced my broader understanding of how the discipline relates with others. I was able to solve various challenges regarding environmental issues both at the community and organizational level. From the volunteering, I was able to network with many affluent individuals and this enabled me create an avenue for my employability. Attending of seminars and workshop helped in building my career further. I though volunteering as wasting of time, but from my experience with National security for clean Air, I have come to appreciate it. Rewards are not limited to monitory terms alone, but the experience gained is more important than money. It is there to last and never will the knowledge fade unlike money which diminishes after some time. Therefore, I urge my fellow colleagues to involve themselves in volunteering activities as they enable the interaction between the communities. One understands the true problem on the ground rather than what is written in books. As an environmentalist, I will offer my skills to ensure we have a better environment and a better future through advocating for best environmental management practices. References Banerjee, S 2011.’ Embedding sustainability across the organization: A critical perspective’, Academy of Management Learning and Education, Vol.10, no.4, pp.719-731. Ilinitch, A, Soderstrom, N and Thomas, TE. (1998).’ Measuring corporate environmental performance’ Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Vol.17, no.5, pp. 383–408. ‘Improving Environmental Management and compliance: 10 elements of effective environmental management systems’.2000. Viewed 17 February 2012, http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/policies/incentives/ems/cecguidedoc.pdf. Levine, H and Agostino, J 2010.’ The role of volunteerism in non-profit organizations during times of fiscal stress’, Journal of the Northeast business & Economics Association, p.711-715. Measham, T and Barnett, G 2008. “Environmental volunteering: motivations, modes and outcomes” Journal of Australian Geographer, Vol.39, no.4, pp.537-552. ‘National Society for Clean Air NSCA’. 2005. Viewed 17 Feb 2012, http://www.wiserearth.org/organization/view/446a599cfabaf79685ecb409cca9e9d1 Rahman, N and Post, C 2012. ‘Measurement issues in environments corporate social responsibility: Towards a transparent, reliable, and construct valid instrument’, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol.195, p.307-319. Warner, S., Newland, BL., & Green, BC. 2011.’ More than motivation: Reconstructing volunteer management tools’, Journal of Sport Management, vol.25, pp.391-407. Read More