Safety and Environmental Compliance Program - Coursework Example

Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Date Safety and Environmental Compliance program Introduction The first successful flights by the Wright brothers in 1903 marks the first steps to the history of commercial airline operation industry. Presently, the commercial airline operations industry is a tight and a concentrated oligopoly sector that has two major players namely Boeing and Airbus (NRC & CHSR 1997, p. 81). Commercial air travel has increasingly advanced and has transformed how individuals across the globe live, work, transact business and experience the outer world by reducing travel times and changing the concept of distance, where people in vast distances are a flight away from each other regardless of the remote locations they are in, which makes it difficult to imagine a world without it as noted by Launius (1999, p. 97). Just like all other global industries in contemporary environment, complying to safety and environmental standards, policies and regulations has been on the forefront of commercial airline operations industry, in a bid to ensure environmental sustainability and to safeguard against adverse environmental conditions caused by environmental degradation (Friis, 2010, p. 23). Safety compliance ensures high productivity, high performance by the industry’s labour force and safeguards against adverse effects of environmental and safety risks as highlighted by Vincoli (1993, p. 57). Compliance with environmental laws within commercial airline operations industry The airline industry in general contributes to approximately 3% of total global green house gas emissions which is expected to rise tremendously as the industry grows. The emission from the aviation industry is approximately seven million tones of carbon dioxide world wide (Standard & Poors, 2011, p. 2). Presently, there are varied environmental issues that the commercial airline operations industry needs to address and manage in order to ensure they are safety and environmentally compliant to ensure safe and secure take offs, travel and landings for the passengers, cargo and the aircrafts (Cahill and Kane, 2011, p. 89). These environmental issues includes managing the rising concern for efficient energy use which is characterized by increasingly exploitation of crude oil to extract fuel for the industry, water management issues and air pollution concerns as a result of the noise generated from the aircraft engines and emission of green house gases into the atmosphere which contributes to the tearing of the ozone layer hence, global warming and its adverse effects on life on earth (McGormley, 2011, p. 211). In addition, the personnel within the commercial airline operations industry are exposed to security risks such as injuries caused by falling objects, caught in and pinch point harm from belt loaders, injuries caused by machine malfunctions and collisions, back injuries for baggage handling personnel and other related flight safety issues. As the safety and environmental compliance program manager, there are different types of programs and systems that I would implement to help maintain environmental compliance in the commercial airline operations industry which includes re-defining and reviewing the industry’s safety and environmental compliance policies, goals, objectives and regulations to ensure they are not only specific, measurable and attainable but also realistic, flexible, accurate, relevant and time bound to help the industry attain set safety and environmental compliance outcomes as suggested by Vincoli (1993, p.1). More importantly ensure, the policies and regulations are based upon safety outcomes and they are not prescriptive and limiting as characterized by present policies and regulations which are not only hard to comprehend and adhere to and they do not help in generating the anticipated outcomes but also irrelevant and conflicting with present safety and environmental changes within the commercial airline operations industry (Thomas, 2000, p. 138). This means developing policies, processes and regulations procedures that are tailor made to the scale of technical and procedural challenges facing the commercial airline operations industry (Jain & Kedia, 2011, p. 19). Apart from reviewing existing safety and environmental compliance goals, policies and regulations within the industry, the next solution to ensuring compliance is establishing the industry’s major and minor hazards, threats, their impacts and legal accountability through comprehensive risk assessment and management system and establishing operational controls and programs for safety and environmental compliance within the industry as suggested by Thomas (2000, p. 138). More importantly, computing and evaluating the performance and progress of safety and environmental compliance programs and controls implemented. It is imperative that all these activities are coupled with safety and environmental compliance awareness programs, staff training and adherence to industry’s operational best practices. This is to ensure that all the labour forces and the management are actively engaged and they do participate in ensuring safety and environmental programs and controls are successful by taking ownership of the defined goals, policies and regulation on safety and environmental compliance and ensure the compliance efforts meets the industry’s international standards respectively (McGormley, 2011, p.198). Important to note is that regulatory and legal repercussion of ineffectively implemented and managed safety and environmental goals and programs can be catastrophic in relation to injuries on both the airline staff and the customers who are the passengers, shareholder value and legal actions. This necessitates the need for comprehensive planning, reporting and documentation of prevention action strategies and efficient reporting of occurrence of safety and environmental compliance breach (Friis, 2010, p. 23). As a safety and environmental compliance program manager, I would establish a comprehensive prevention, reporting and response strategy program that highlight all the necessarily prevention measures, effective reporting of occurrences of safety issues and effective remedial measures as echoed by McGormley (2011, p.198). This entails all the stakeholders being trained and knowledgeable on safety and environmental compliance activities by offering regular staff training, routine drills and creating public awareness, enlightening them on steps and procedures to take in case of safety and environmental issues and how to effectively and efficiently respond to the issues in order to minimize damage and safeguard against escalation of minor an manageable issues into major, hard or costly to manage ones. Every individual should know what their roles are as discussed by Thomas (2000, p. 139). Compliance to international set regulations on environmental compliance such the Kyoto protocol and ISO is vital for the commercial airline operations industry as it will be better placed to calculate and report its emissions of green houses gases and ensure quality standards are adhered with, environmental sustainability for the welfare of the wider community, sustainable competitive business climate and be ready to adapt to future international and local environmental regulations and policies as discussed by Standard & Poors (2011, p.7). Incident reporting helps in obtaining critical information, tracking information on incidents and ensuring follow up actions are carried out efficiently and effectively (Jain & Kedia, 2011, p. 19). Regular reporting of incidences wherever and whenever they occur should not be limited to operations and processes only but should include reporting, recording and tracking incidences in relation to injuries, near misses and accidents that the labour forces and the passengers experience and the process of investigation of the incidents and implementation of preventive actions to minimize risks of recurrence (Wit & Meyer, 2010, p. 527). Data from incident reporting is crucial in designing effective and suitable safety and environmental compliance programs. There is no compromise to safety in commercial airline operations industry either in practice or in process as it radiates in all the aspects of operations and systems of the industry be it in aircraft maintenance, baggage and cargo handling, passenger handling, air traffic activities and services. This necessitates the need for an integrated safety and environmental management system that is not only easy to apply but also effective in management of operations and processes within the industry and ensure they all comply with safety and environmental standards established in policy or in regulation over time and place (Friis, 2010, p. 23). The checklist consists 1. re-defining and reviewing the industry’s safety and environmental compliance policies, goals, objectives and regulations 2. risk assessment and management 3. develop and implement environmental compliance control programs 4. measure and evaluate performance and progress of control programs 5. staff engagement 6. complying with operations best practice and international regulations and protocols 7. establish comprehensive preventive and corrective actions 8. incident reporting Environmental control methods, procedures, and programs to handle environmental hazards presented by commercial airline operations industry There environmental hazards presented by commercial airline operations industry which includes fuel energy insufficiency, water wastage, emission of green house gases into the atmosphere, toxic emissions into waters and on the ground, noise pollution from the aircraft engines. In addition, risks of radiation exposure as noted by Gundestrup & Storm (1999, p. 2029). According to Christopher (2011, p.1), additional environmental risks of the industry includes effect of jet fuels used for turbine engines on human health depending on the dose, amount of exposure and means of contamination to the body. Ensuring safety and environmental compliance within the commercial airline operations industry and safeguarding against the highlighted environmental hazards begins by identifying current and prospective safety and environment risks within the industry and effectively prioritizing and reducing the rate of high-risk situations by utilizing risk based filtering system which automatically isolates and classifies risk situations from the source (McGormley, 2011, p. 196). This helps to guide decision making processes on suitable corrective strategies and check plans and ensure the appropriate changes are made to safeguard against first time occurrence or a re-occurrence. To safeguard against emissions from the commercial airline operations as an environmental hazard can be achieved by mobilizing for support in purchase of more fuel efficient cleaner aircrafts and engines and looking for alternative energy supply to power the aircrafts without relying on burnt fossil fuels which means less fuel will be used thus, low emission of green house gases into the atmosphere as supported by Christopher (2011, p.1). This can be attained by investing in research on how agricultural products can produce alternative fuel which will be cost effective and generate higher operational efficiency in the industry. To minimize water wastage and to ensure that harmful emissions into the air, water and ground from the maintenance and airport bases are kept at reasonably low levels, the industry can carry out low cost measures. These low cost measures include use of drainage systems and holding tanks to tap fluids utilized in aircraft de-icing in order to treat them prior to them being discharged into water ways or on the ground, using vehicles powered using alternative energy such as solar and natural gas to tow machines and cargo within the terminals, water treatment and using alternative storage of fuel other than underground storage to safeguard against leaks into underground water (McGormley, 2011, p.1).. In addition, use of relatively small solvent tanks to ensure maintenance staff utilizes only the required amount of solvent to carry out their maintenance work and insist on using alkaline based solvents instead of chlorinated ones to minimize environmental hazards as discussed by A.F.E.S.C. (1993, p. 93). All safety and environmental issues can effectively and efficiently be prevented and managed when there are reliable and efficient incident reporting and management systems where stakeholders such as employees and passengers can report occurrences, near misses and environmental hazards to the considered parties to help in identifying, assessing, categorizing and managing the incidences (Thomas, 2000, p. 138). Incidence reporting and management can be incorporated to other compliance programs such as preventive strategies, remedial actions, staff training, risk management and data management to help eliminate risks wherever and whenever possible and generate information which is crucial to developing compliance control systems. As a compliance program manager, I can effectively manage the existing environmental hazards within the commercial airline operations industry by ensuring regular safety and environmental audits and inspections by establishing a comprehensive compliance audit system to help measure environmental hazards (Jain & Kedia, 2011, p. 19). In addition, ensure continuous safety improvement, assess the rate of compliance to established compliance control and performance systems and guidelines and analyse the effectiveness of established environmental compliance goals, objectives, policies and regulations in order to help guide in decision making in making the necessary changes as supported by Thomas (2000, p. 138). The audit system should not only guide auditors in auditing effectively but also highlight all the processes within the audit cycle from setting schedules, preparing and planning, auditing process, reporting, receiving feedback and creation of corrective actions. To ensure the industry’s permits on safety are updated and to safeguard against safety permits expiring without the management’s knowledge, as compliance program manager I would recommend a tracking system which notifies when permits are almost expiring and help the management safeguard against adverse non-compliance challenges (VAC, 2008, p. 1). The industry can effectively use tracking system to identify areas that are non-compliance and take corrective actions. It is important to clarify the roles and responsibility of each stakeholder in ensuing safety and environmental compliance within the industry and ensure each has the necessarily skills and understanding to execute their part effectively and efficiently (Wit & Meyer, 2010, p. 529). Issues associated with working with governmental officials and how they might be addressed As earlier indicated, developing a regular operation and process audits and inspection is an essential factor in managing environmental hazards presented by the commercial airline operations industry. Carrying out audits not only require the participation of the internal organization but also engagement from external auditors and government agencies as noted by Thomas (2000, p. 138). To ensure government inspections on safety and environmental compliance are a success, as a compliance program manager I recommend that employees are courteous and cooperative with inspection officials to avoid unnecessarily friction but ensure they say and do what is necessary. The officials will not only be accompanied by a designated point person during the inspections but also they will allow for the company to exercise its rights to safeguard classified and proprietary data as echoed by Blagojevich (2005, p. 61). The inspecting officials should present their credentials to ensure they are authentic and if they seek to investigate, they must have duly signed warrants. Apart from the above mentioned elements of the inspection process, labour forces should be informed and trained on how to protect classified information of the industry and how they should respond to inspector’s questions. The checklist is as follows 1. Inspector’s arrivals 2. Notify the point person 3. Understand scope of inspection 4. Inquire for official’s credentials 5. Inquire for warrant and inspect it thoroughly 6. Ensure officials are accompanied during the entire inspection process 7. Allow officials to interview other staff 8. Record all workers interviewed and take notes in all actions, questions, answers, conversations carried out by the inspecting officials 9. Keep records of documents accessed by the officials and limit access to confidential information 10. Make copies of all environmental and safety tests and photos taken by the inspecting officials 11. Ensure co-operation, honesty and politeness throughout the inspection process and avoid giving unnecessary information which has not been asked 12. Avoid giving answers that may imply admission of guilt or violation 13. Ask for the time the next inspection will be carried out. There are issues that are associated with working with government officials which includes officials who are not willing for the staff to exercise their rights in regards to how much information they can reveal to safeguard confidentiality and uphold the company’s legal rights (Blagojevich, 2005, p. 3). In addition, the officials may extend the investigation or the inspection beyond the scope they are supposed to cover. To counter these issues, it is important that only a designated point person accompanies the officials during the inspection visits, employees and the company assert their legal rights to protect confidential information, ask for credentials and warrants to ensure the scope of inspection is adhered to and ensure the officials are authentic and more importantly foster an environment of co-operation and courtesy towards the officials. Challenges associated with ensuring company personnel follow environmental regulations Ensuring that company personnel follow environmental regulations and set standards for safety are easier said than done. Owing to the complexities of making decisions, sometimes they may not be engaged in the decision making process which may make them feel uninvolved and may result in them failing to take ownership to environmental compliance policies and objectives (Vincoli, 1993, p. 121). The solution is to ensure as much as possible they are involved and allowed to participate in making decisions on environmental compliance issues affecting them. On the other hand, they may fail to understand the significance of environmental compliance and therefore have low or no commitment to ensuring environmental compliance within the company is a success. Their failure to understand the significance of environmental compliance may be as a result of ineffective communication from the management, which necessitates the need to equip them with skills and knowledge on the need for environmental compliance through regular training. Failure to see the benefits of environmental compliance on their professional and personal lives may influence the staff to have a ‘don’t care attitude’ towards environmental compliance and may in fact influence their perceptions to associate environmental compliance with increased workload, pressure and time consuming. This can be countered by communicating and showing them how failure to facilitate environmental compliance negatively affects their lives at a professional and personal level (Thomas, 2000, p. 138). Possible ethical and professional dilemmas of a responsible environmental professional Among ethical and professional dilemmas faced by responsible environmental professionals includes the ability to act in good faith, with due care without misrepresentation of facts and permitting their independent opinions to be subordinated. In addition, respecting the confidentiality of information obtained during their work, ensuring they do not use acquired confidential data for personal interests and ensuring there are no conflict of interests in their professional and personal relationships (Wit & Meyer, 2010, p. 529). All these dilemmas can effectively be dealt with by the responsible professional being honest, accountable and comply with professional code of ethics and applicable local and state laws. Moreover, acting professionally within work environment and while in the wider society. Conclusion Environmental compliance is a modern day challenge for all people, young and old, male and female and professionals or non-professionals, which has extended to organizations and industries. The commercial airline operations industry is not spared in implementing feasible operational policies, regulations and goals to ensure environmental sustainability owing to the environmental hazards it presents such as fuel inefficiency, negative impact of jet fuels on human health, noise pollution, emission of green house gases and harmful discharge from airport and maintenance bases. Among means and methods of fostering environmental compliance includes risks assessment and management, operational audits and inspections, reviewing environmental compliance goals, policies and regulations, tracking permits and compliance control performance and progress, staff engagement, effective incident reporting, effective preventive and corrective measures. References A.F.E.S.C. Solvent substitution for pollution prevention. Sidney: William Andrew, 1993. Blagojevich, B.R. What to expect from an environmental compliance inspection. Chicago: IEPA. 2005. Cahill Lawrence and Kane Raymond. Environmental Health and Safety Audits, 9th Ed. London: Government Institutes, 2011. Christopher, S. The effect of jet fuel emissions on humans. eHow.com. 2011. Accessed on 24th Oct 2011 from http://www.ehow.com/about_6579868_effect-jet-fuel-emissions-humans.html Friis, Robert. Essentials of Environmental Health. New Jersey: Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2010. Gundestrup, M., & Storm, H.H. Radiation induced acute myeloid leukemia and other cancers in commercial jet cockpit crew: A population based cohort study. Lancet, 354:2029-2031. 1999. Jain, Subhash, and Kedia, Ben. Enhancing Global Competitiveness through Sustainable Environmental Stewardship. Melbourne: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011. Launius, Roger. Innovation and the development of flight. Dallas: Texas A&M University Press, 1999. McGormley, Robert. Guidebook of practices for improving environmental performance at small airports. London: Transportation Research Board, 2011. NRC & CHSR. U.S. supersonic commercial aircraft: assessing NASA's high speed research program. Washington DC: National Academies Press, 1997. Standard & Poors. Global credit portal: Airline carbon costs take off as EU emissions regulations reach for the skies. Environmental finance. 2011. Accessible from http://www.environmental-finance.com/download.php?files/pdf/4d663c478efb8/Airline%20Carbon%20Costs%20take%20Off.pdf Thomas, William, Frey, Bertram & Daves, Fern. Crafting superior environmental enforcement solutions. London: Environmental Law Institute, 2000. Vincoli, Jeffrey. Basic Guide to Environmental Compliance. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1993. Wit, Bob. & Meyer, Ron. Strategy: Process, Content, Context, An International Perspective. London: Cengage Learning EMEA, 2010. Read More

As the safety and environmental compliance program manager, there are different types of programs and systems that I would implement to help maintain environmental compliance in the commercial airline operations industry which includes re-defining and reviewing the industry’s safety and environmental compliance policies, goals, objectives and regulations to ensure they are not only specific, measurable and attainable but also realistic, flexible, accurate, relevant and time bound to help the industry attain set safety and environmental compliance outcomes as suggested by Vincoli (1993, p.1). More importantly ensure, the policies and regulations are based upon safety outcomes and they are not prescriptive and limiting as characterized by present policies and regulations which are not only hard to comprehend and adhere to and they do not help in generating the anticipated outcomes but also irrelevant and conflicting with present safety and environmental changes within the commercial airline operations industry (Thomas, 2000, p. 138). This means developing policies, processes and regulations procedures that are tailor made to the scale of technical and procedural challenges facing the commercial airline operations industry (Jain & Kedia, 2011, p. 19). Apart from reviewing existing safety and environmental compliance goals, policies and regulations within the industry, the next solution to ensuring compliance is establishing the industry’s major and minor hazards, threats, their impacts and legal accountability through comprehensive risk assessment and management system and establishing operational controls and programs for safety and environmental compliance within the industry as suggested by Thomas (2000, p. 138). More importantly, computing and evaluating the performance and progress of safety and environmental compliance programs and controls implemented.

It is imperative that all these activities are coupled with safety and environmental compliance awareness programs, staff training and adherence to industry’s operational best practices. This is to ensure that all the labour forces and the management are actively engaged and they do participate in ensuring safety and environmental programs and controls are successful by taking ownership of the defined goals, policies and regulation on safety and environmental compliance and ensure the compliance efforts meets the industry’s international standards respectively (McGormley, 2011, p.198). Important to note is that regulatory and legal repercussion of ineffectively implemented and managed safety and environmental goals and programs can be catastrophic in relation to injuries on both the airline staff and the customers who are the passengers, shareholder value and legal actions.

This necessitates the need for comprehensive planning, reporting and documentation of prevention action strategies and efficient reporting of occurrence of safety and environmental compliance breach (Friis, 2010, p. 23). As a safety and environmental compliance program manager, I would establish a comprehensive prevention, reporting and response strategy program that highlight all the necessarily prevention measures, effective reporting of occurrences of safety issues and effective remedial measures as echoed by McGormley (2011, p.198). This entails all the stakeholders being trained and knowledgeable on safety and environmental compliance activities by offering regular staff training, routine drills and creating public awareness, enlightening them on steps and procedures to take in case of safety and environmental issues and how to effectively and efficiently respond to the issues in order to minimize damage and safeguard against escalation of minor an manageable issues into major, hard or costly to manage ones.

Every individual should know what their roles are as discussed by Thomas (2000, p. 139). Compliance to international set regulations on environmental compliance such the Kyoto protocol and ISO is vital for the commercial airline operations industry as it will be better placed to calculate and report its emissions of green houses gases and ensure quality standards are adhered with, environmental sustainability for the welfare of the wider community, sustainable competitive business climate and be ready to adapt to future international and local environmental regulations and policies as discussed by Standard & Poors (2011, p.7).

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