Business & sustainability - Essay Example

This section deals with the environment practices of Morrison Company with reference to the five stage model. a. Management Policies and systems: Out of the 50 reporting criteria, 12 are included under this section. Some of the important ones are management views on environment, existence of an environmental management system, environmental auditing, responsibility and accountability etc. The company has ambitious environmental protection policies included in its CSR report and some of the important policies are given.

It may be noted that policies and actual performance may differ. The company proposes to reduce its carbon foot print by 36% in the coming two years. Energy saving is also viewed seriously and the company had invested 10m in energy saving technology. It is looking seriously at renewable sources of energy and reduced usage of water. Other policies include sourcing of fish and timber from sustainable sources, waste reduction, carbon labelling, fleet efficiency and fleet emission control in its fleet "We are committed to taking good care environmentally, socially and in our business.

" (Annual review and summary Financial Statement 2007, 2007). b. Input output inventory: As many as twenty reporting criteria are included under this head. . The group could also achieve a 9% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions during the past year. Their new head office in Bradford has a rain water collection and treatment plant. Morrison Plc also follows the practice of remoulding used tires thereby saving 675 tonnes of rubber. The company has a good record in recycling of waste products. 60% of its paper and cardboard waste was recycled last year.

Plastic recycling was to the tune of 7% and other waste 5%. The total tonnage of recycled waste rose 26% from 128,000 tonnes in 2006 to 142,000 tonnes in 2007. The company has also managed a waste to landfill by 28%. Land filling by using domestic and industrial waste is a common practice followed by many countries. The main problem of using waste for landfills is contamination of the water table. A lot of regulations have come up regarding the usage of waste and Morrison's have taken this seriously.

"The objective of the Directive is to prevent or reduce as far as possible negative effects on the environment from the land filling of waste, by introducing stringent technical requirements for waste and landfills." (Waste, Landfill of Waste, 2007). Another novel feature introduced by the company is the usage of compostable packaging. This type of packing is biodegradable and hence not a threat to the environment. Packaging is usually made of sugar cane fibre, wood pulp and GM free corn starch and has saved the company 27 tonnes .

Package returning is another step taken by Morrison's. This means that the company is able to send back to the supplier the packaging used in transportation and this practice has helped the company to save 65,000 tonnes of cardboard. Package changing and redesigning is also another initiative