Environmental Auditing Strategy Proposal - Assignment Example

? Environmental Auditing Strategy Proposal for Household Waste Recycling Centers Executive summary The environmental auditing proposal addresses environmental issues, which will facilitate the audit process of company. This proposal will target waste collection, waste segregation and waste disposal. Environmental audit is viewed as a tool of management, which comprises of systematic and objective evaluations of how an environmental organization is fairing with the aim of protecting the environment. The management enhances it, when it facilitates the environmental practices, and also, when it is assessing regulatory requirements; that is, assessing compliance of company regulations. This incorporates employing various strategies, which embraces recycling of the available used resources. The strategies employed are more effective when they are cost cutting and conservative. Introduction Household waste recycling involves recovering useful materials, such as metals, glass, plastic and paper from trash and used to make new products thus reducing the amount of raw materials required. This helps in waste prevention; that is designing products to reduce the level of waste that is thrown away later hence making the resulting waste less toxic. Therefore, an environmental auditing strategy enables the client to adopt a cost effective and proportional to environment management. The environment audit process provides a substantial reduction in risk and improves compliance records. It is also used by the audit company in provision of data so that corporate headquarters and client’s company respond to environmental targets and pressures its resources appropriately (Benita, 2008). Proper management of environmental issues is significant to the success of the client’s company. Therefore, if household waste is properly, a project can derive substantial benefits through enhanced corporate reputation, improved efficiency and risk reduction. If there is ignorance, or ineffective management of environmental issues brings about adverse publicity, wasted money and also prosecution by the authority, as a result of abuse of opportunities. Environment audit includes mitigating your organization’s reputation and legal risks, reducing operational inefficiencies, achieving the certification required and improving the environmental performance of your organization. It also incorporates risk mitigation. Audits carried out in the environment act as an appropriate risk management tool in assessing compliance with legislating the environment hence, assisting your organization in avoiding risk of prosecution by the authority, and fines arising from potential environmental breaches. This is normally true in those circumstances where there exist hazardous polluting industries in the surrounding. Conducting an environmental audit will help in reassuring the client’s company and ensure that it is living up to the environmental standards. Environmental issues are both complex and varied and hence, for effective management it will need a combination of an effective, practical, understanding and an environmental technical expertise of the processes, practices and plans relates with the environment, economic and social factors. Therefore, environmental auditing is a form of environmental assessment and is a vital tool in determining and benchmarking environmental performances and risks. It is necessarily undertaken as part of risk management process, hence able to help the client in examining their current operations associated with environmental aspects, as well as taking note of the future trends so that they exploit them effectively. The overall aim of the study was to provide a clear view of how a city can meet the requirements of the waste option of its plan and hence, there should be a development of waste management plan. Research question/solution The proposal examines whether the audit company has a segregation procedure, employee awareness of the procedure used, and analysis of records regarding the procedure. It also examines the awareness and training sessions. Key words Strategy, compliance, assessment, corporate, mitigation, requirements, standards, evaluation, segregation, and appropriate, among others Literature review Cost cutting strategy When it comes to waste recycling, cost is an extremely significant thing. Offering collection services for the wastes is less often can frequently lead to a decrease in costs and also a raise in the amount of waste diverted from the disposal. Reducing collection frequency lowers the cost of operation in the production. When the collection is less frequent, people in the surrounding should set more wastes for every collection hence making vehicle trips involved more productive. Frequency in waste collection also translates to savings in maintenance costs, labor and capital. A reduction in frequency of waste collection is enhanced by an improved second selection turn with a yard trimming or a recyclable collection. The cost involved can be further enhanced by using automated collection vehicles since they reduce costs and increase efficiency to the client. This means that a reduction in the total fleet and labor costs decrease the number of distinct vehicles required providing multiple collection services (Blackman, 2008). Employee productivity in waste collection is enhanced by employing new management techniques like better pay and incentive programs, revised organizational structures, new technique in training, modified performance appraisal modules, better job description hence improving employee morale and raising the productivity. A well designed competitive procurement is the road to retrieving the most reasonable and best rates in the service offering. Competition proves effective which is enhanced by the existence of privatization to get the best cost saving method. In some places, private waste collectors are allowed to compete with public crew for the rights in the provision of collection services, which helps in making the public sector more innovative hence lowering costs and a higher quality. Conservative strategy Human beings in their quest for economic grown to the limitation of the resources available, and must put future generations into consideration. This depends with whether the object of development is to provide economic and social welfare, this enhances on the earth’s capacity to sustain development and support all life. As a product of an extremely thorough consultation process, specifically reflects a compromise among conservationists who may view the importance of ecosystems, species issues and measures which continues even to practitioners and conservationists and hence differ on their emphasis on maintenance. It is also involving sharing of limitation of global analysis. It has an obligation to simplify and aggregate a host of diversified local phenomena and also ignoring a host of local problems experienced. However, this is prone to error. The main purpose of the conservation strategy is to advance the achievements of suitability development through the conservation of the resources living in that surrounding. The strategy proposes the most effective ways of obtaining the strategy’s aim, identifying the priority of the conservation issues and also the main requirements for dealing with them and also explaining the contribution of the living resources to human survival to sustainable development.(Blackman, 2008) There are few audit companies that have technical and financial resources to determine all of the problems of the living resources involved in the conservation abruptly. Therefore, they need to understand what the preference is. Accordingly, the strategy recommends ways of overcoming the defined conservation and hence techniques of providing guidance on the action which is more significant. The strategy is significant to any level of government with relevant duties for managing and planning the use of the living resources in the environment. This is a key determiner in the recycling of the resource because it is the government that is involved in dictating these resources. Conservationists are directly concerned with these available resources. Because of this, an area where conservation action is most urgently requires attention. Areas where it is likely to produce the greatest and most efficient results should be upheld to ensure. It also initiates ways in which conservation can participate more significantly in the development process, hence, increasing the probability of its being positively received by the community which is embracing development and helping in ensuring that the development will be efficient and sustainable. Development practitioners include people like the aid agencies, commerce and industry and trade unions. Strategy in this group demonstrates that conservation proves the ways of a sustainable development and hence, proposes ways of integrating the path for the development and growth process. It also gets into identifying those areas where the conservation and development interests and hence more likely to offer a closer partnership between the processes and beneficial to both (Andre, 2008). The main obstacles of achieving conservation are failure to integrate development with conservation, belief that the sector involved in resource conservation is limited, lack of support of conservation and capacity to conserve. In conclusion, strategies by the audit companies recommend to promoting, and supporting and also coordinating national actions and emphasize the relevance of a stronger and a defined international conservation law and also an enhanced assistance in development in living resource conservation. It also incorporates regional strategies to improve the conservation of shared living resources. Different agencies should have the responsibility for living resources should have clear mandates, and hence such mandates should include conservation, and should have a fixed mechanism for joint consultation in the implementation of processes. Increase in environmental pollution has led to the creation of awareness on the need of recycling. It has led to development of recycling sectors where used material available in the localities can be reused again. For this reason, the audit company focuses on the provision of efficient resource utilization. Therefore, recycling forms a basis for reducing the environmental hazards. The objectives of environmental auditing include, securing the environment, verifying compliance with the local and national rules and regulations. Indicating the current or the potential future problems addressed, assessing training programs and providing data relevant for training. It enables companies to build on satisfactory performance hence giving where available, and also in avoiding inefficiencies. Identifying potential cost savings through waste minimization, assisting the exchange, and comparing of the different plants and the subsidiary companies is crucial. Demonstrating the company’s commitment in safeguarding the employees, the public and the government, is also a priority (Harding, 2006). Hundreds and millions of people in the developing countries are involved in destroying the resources, which are significant in saving them from poverty, and starvation. The financial cost of providing these services is growing, and the resource base for the prominent industries is reducing. Waste collection A company should aim at an efficient way of collecting the wastes in the surrounding. The method used for garbage collection, however, should not generate hazardous wastes ,and this is as a part of an intergrated cleaner production approach, to the benefit of the client. Waste segregation The company involved in the waste collection encourages better means of, recycling, reusing and treating of the wastes. This is embraced by promoting environmentally sound technologies, which will bring changes to sustain the innovation. This will also help in supporting the domestic facilities to handle the hazardous wastes from the households, for the benefit of the clients company. Waste disposal The audit company should establish better environmental management systems, to the distribution and production sites. This is to help in identifying the methods efficient for the client’s benefit. Therefore, the audit company should be clear in its operations and provide significant information to the clients company, since it affects its generation, management, and disposal of hazardous wastes. Methodology In the aim of achieving a rounded analysis, one needs to use both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. This is to ensure that the final product has incorporation of all aspects in reference to environmental auditing strategies applied in recycling centers. In relation to this, it will encompass observation, experiments, interviews, and questionnaires. Observation will be the dominant tool in information collection as the proposal entails analyzing the measures used by the individuals; living in the environment in question. Other methodologies, such as interviews and questionnaire will be in specific in nature, because they will target different areas of studies. The other methods will be used in case there will be a need to create precision in various areas of study (Sango, 2008). Interview will be highly reliable because there will be the existence of direct physical contact with the interviewees. These include government officials, private investors, among others. The key advantage behind the methodology is that, the information collected from these parties is free from biases and other forms of corruption of data. Questionnaires will be relevant in that they are precise since they dictate a question which the interviewee needs. A researcher who is researching on the strategies used by recycling sectors dictates the question to be included in the questionnaires; hence the data retrieved is within the field he is interested. However, the answers obtained after the questions have been answered can be out of topic hence the interviewer should seek appropriate answers and ask precise questions. References Blackman, A., Can Voluntary Environmental Regulation Work in Developing Countries? Lessons from Case Studies. Policy Studies Journal, 2008. Jeanne, M. S., 2007. Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety. International Labor Organization. Andre, K., 2008. Environment Conservation: Consultancy, Equipment, Material. London: Swiss Office for Trade Promotion. Pimentel, D. 2008. Ecological Integrity: Integrating Environment, Conservation, and Health. Island Press. Harding, R., 2006. Ecologically sustainable development: origins, implementation and challenges. Desalination. Sango, M. 2008. Payments for Environmental Services, Forest Conservation and Climate Change: Livelihoods in the Redd? USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Benita, J. T. 2009. Culture, Environment, and Conservation in the Appalachian South. University of Illinois Press. Read More