Working in Australia means interacting with people from various cultures, belief systems, priorities, and levels of wellbeing. Adding to that diversity is that people from the same community can vary greatly in their level of concern for and commitment to tackling environmental problems.
Thank you again for jumping into a role where you can make a difference with your behaviour, attitudes, connections, and actions.
Paul HawkenThe first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least try not to defy them.
Assess the business where it is today
As employees in a business environment, we likely use some measure of self-assessment to assess our abilities against our job requirements. This helps to identify gaps in knowledge and skills or that we're ready for more responsibility. When we apply self-assessment to the sustainability of our working practices, we should be able to identify areas where improvement can be made.
Take a moment and consider the areas you might start looking into for improvement in your personal work practices. Once you have a list, then select the label or (+) sign to compare it to ours. Did you identify additional areas? Did you get any new ideas from the list?
- Time management
- Workload prioritisation
- Resource management
- Waste reduction
- Energy conservation
Case Study: Amir
Amir works at ABC Real Estate and has been asked to draft a letter to a new client regarding the sale of their home.
Amir completes the letter, prints the draft and hands it to his manager Elaine. Elaine finds several grammatical and spelling mistakes, notes them, and returns the printed letter to Amir for correction.
While making corrections on the digital copy, his colleague Becca distracts Amir by talking to him about last night’s episode of the show they are both binging.
Amir prints the second draft of the letter and shows it to his manager for approval. However, Elaine notes that there are two corrections that were missed.
Amir returns to his computer, makes the corrections and prints the final draft on letterhead for Elaine to sign.
Think: How could this process have been improved?
This work is about aligning Australia's environmental goals with the goals of the organisation and your own personal goals for the trifecta of sustainability!
The government is here to help
In Australia, employees are afforded a high health and safety standard in the workplace. Your employer is responsible for providing and maintaining a healthy and safe working environment as best they can.
You will find many regulations related to Work Health Safety (WHS) and sustainability. For example, there are rules and regulations around the storage of chemicals and the disposal of chemical waste. These examples can have both safety and environmental impacts.
Each state is required to implement their own version of the Model WHS Laws set out by SafeWork Australia, and each of these issues pertains to specific industries, so be sure to consider what aspects of sustainability work you can focus on to make the biggest impact on your workplace.
Reading
For further reading regarding the Model WHS Laws, visit SafeWork Australia.
Environmental management — how a business operation may affect the environment — is a main facet of sustainable business practises.
Challenge yourself to correctly complete the statements about these practices:
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act; Cwth) provide a framework to protect the Australian environment including flora, fauna, ecological communities and heritage places.
To ensure that environmental management and sustainability is at the forefront of business practises, organisations often voluntarily report on the environmental impact of their organisation through operational plans, stakeholder reports, and annual reports.
Some examples of environmental or sustainability reports include:
- greenhouse gas reporting
- energy reporting
- triple bottom line reporting
- natural resource monitoring.
While most organisations' environmental reporting is voluntary, some mandatory industry reporting requirements may be applicable.
Explore
The Australian Government's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) website is an excellent resource for more information regarding environmental management within your business.
Corporate social responsibility
The Australian Human Rights Commission defines this as:
…corporations have a degree of responsibility not only for the economic consequences of their activities, but also for the social and environmental implications. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘triple bottom line’ approach that considers the economic, social and environmental aspects of corporate activity.
Essentially, corporate social responsibility is the practices and policies undertaken by a corporation that are intended to have a positive influence on the world. This concept encourages corporations to be accountable for, focus on, and pursue social objectives, such as ethically sourced ingredients, as well as maximising profits and being accountable to their stakeholders.
Corporate social responsibility can be found in their approach to human rights such as labour rights, anti-discrimination and the right to clean drinking water and it has been incorporated into international standards and initiatives such as:
- OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
- ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work
- United Nations Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises.
Activity – Which businesses get it right?
This activity is a bit of fun. Do you know the major business players leading Australia's sustainability efforts? Head over to this web page — these global companies are leading the pack of Corporate Responsibilities Raiders! See if you can match their service with their company name.
Explore
Learn more about corporate social responsibility and its impact on human rights with these resources.
- Australian Human Rights Commission
- Read the document regarding ISO 26000:2010 or the abstract.
Sustainability Policies and Procedures
Organisations often choose to implement sustainability policies and procedures to ensure they implement sustainable business practises and engage with sustainable contractors or suppliers.
An organisation’s environmental sustainability policy may include:
- relevant government legislation, policies and procedures
- environmental and sustainability voluntary or involuntary reporting requirements
- responsibilities of those within the business to monitor sustainability
- suggested action to take to promote sustainable business practises
- standards, principles and practises for material use
- requirement for product, supplier and materials selection.
The following activity allows you to put those six policy points into context.
Climate change strategy or Action plan
These are mechanisms to enable the general public and clients or customers to see how a company rates sustainability within the production of goods or the provision of services.
This may include:
- a reduction of an organisation’s carbon footprint
- cultural diversity or change within an organisation
- investment strategies
- reporting requirements
- sponsorships and memberships.
If your company doesn't have guidelines in place to manage and communicate these aspects of the business, your inquiry may lead to genuine change!
Reflection
It is up to everyone in the workplace to contribute to a healthy and sustainable work environment that strives to balance planet, people and profit.
How do various people within your organisation contribute and communicate their initiatives? What was most effective? Was there anything that turned you off to help with the company's sustainability efforts?
Use your journal to process your thoughts. These notes may help you to develop processes that help ensure your communication efforts are on target.
To become a sustainability champion in your workplace if you want to, it's helpful to learn the existing framework to help Australian businesses create environmentally responsible policies and practices.
In 1999, the Australian Government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cwth) was set forward (and commenced in 2000), providing ‘a legal framework to protect and manage nationally and internationally important flora, fauna, ecological communities and heritage places defined in the Act as matters of national environmental significance’.
The objectives of the EPBC Act (Cwth) are to:
- provide for the protection of the environment, especially matters of national environmental significance
- conserve Australian biodiversity
- provide a streamlined national environmental assessment and approvals process
- enhance the protection and management of important natural and cultural places
- control the international movement of plants and animals (wildlife), wildlife specimens and products made or derived from wildlife
- promote ecologically sustainable development through the conservation and ecologically sustainable use of natural resources
- recognise the role of Indigenous people in the conservation and ecologically sustainable use of Australia’s biodiversity
- promote the use of Indigenous peoples’ knowledge of biodiversity with the involvement of, and in cooperation with, the owners of the knowledge.
Take a deeper dive into the legislation amendment on the Australian Government’s Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment website specifically regarding our role in protecting the environment under the EPBC Act.
To understand regulations, we'll look at some definitions according to the Environmental Protection Act (1986 (Cwth).
| Environment | All living things, their physical, biological and social surroundings, and interactions between all of them. |
| Social surroundings | The aesthetic, cultural, and economic surroundings that may directly affect or are affected by physical or biological surroundings. |
Pollution comes in many forms, as we know and your role may place you in a position to impact this issue.
The Environment Protection (Vehicle Emissions) Regulations 2013 aim to minimise the negative effects of noise and emissions from motor vehicles by providing compliance information on air emissions (grossly polluted vehicle rule and diesel emission standards) and noise standards (noise tests and engine speeds) for vehicles on the road.
Read: Find out more about Australia's legislation at the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Find your legislation and codes
each state and territory will also have their own coinciding legislations and codes. You can view each of these below:
Principles
The following Environmental Principles (2020) were created in line with the Environmental Protection Act 1986 (Cwth) and Australian Environmental policies. Select the title of each one to learn the definition.
Conservation of biological diversity and ecological integrity should be a fundamental consideration. This includes protecting all life forms; plant, animals and microorganisms understanding their intense interconnection in terms of each other’s survival.
Environmental factors should be included in the valuation of assets and services (economy), including those generating pollution and waste. Users of goods and services should bear these costs. Environmental goals, having been established, should be pursued in the most cost-effective way, by establishing incentive structures, including market mechanisms, which enable those best placed to maximise benefits or minimise costs to develop their own solutions and responses to environmental problems.
Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation. In the application of the precautionary principle, decisions should be guided by careful evaluation and assessment of risk (risk management) to avoid, where practicable, serious or irreversible damage to the environment.
The present generation should ensure that the health, diversity and productivity of the environment is maintained or enhanced for the benefit of future generations (quality of life).
All reasonable and practicable measures should be taken to minimise the generation of waste and its discharge into the environment.
The process of informing participation and transparency of communities in situations of potential impact on actions.
Collaboration and involvement of communities’ work towards long-term goals for sustainability.
Continual improvement is required for sustainability processes including the containing, minimising use of natural resources and production of damaging elements such as plastics and reviewing the impacts of elements, such as waste and environment pollutants.
Actively identify and implement (where practical) improvements to minimise the production of greenhouse gases through our everyday activities.
Actively identify and implement (where practical) improvements to minimise consumption and promote efficient use of energy, water, paper and other material inputs.
Consider environmental factors when purchasing and using fleet vehicles and travel sustainably when practical.
Ensure all new capital works programs and office relocations incorporate comprehensive environmental sustainability principles.
Comply with all relevant environmental legislation, regulations and policies.
Monitor and review your environmental performance against annually reviewed targets. Improve the quality of data collected and reported.
Communicate our environmental performance to all staff and stakeholders while encouraging participation and feedback.
Legal duty and codes of practice
Each state and territory has individual requirements regarding business licensing, operations, sustainable practice and environmental responsibility to ensure the prevention of environmental harm, nuisances and contamination. Each business will have a legal obligation and duty to these conditions, which apply to all businesses. Non-compliance can result in offences set by the jurisdictional environmental authority (EA).
Use google search tools, find your state or territory’s environmental code of practice and EA for more information. Here are a few examples:
- Business Queensland 'Meeting Environmental Obligations and Duties’ | Visit
- Business Queensland ‘Environmental Codes of Practice for Industry’ | Visit
- EPA Victoria ‘Understanding Your Environmental Obligations’ | Visit
- Australian Government, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment ‘National Waste Policy’ | Visit
Reporting Issues
Now that you have more awareness around problems in sustainability, you'll need to determine the best people and process to communicate them.
The problems come in different forms and are too numerous to list here, but they can be:
- pointing out workplace risks or hazards
- identifying resource wastage
- workplace bullying.
If you have discovered a problem, you should report it to an appropriate staff member. This can be difficult for some employees, as in the following example, where we'll revisit Dean.
Example - Dean
The Problem
Dean enjoys a good working relationship with all his colleagues. However, recently he has witnessed another employee, Anne, disposing of chemical waste in an open stormwater drain. Dean knows that he should say something about this. However, he does not want to get Anne in trouble or for her to be upset with him.
What should Dean do?
A. Speak to Anne to find out what is going on
B. Ignore the problem
C. Speak to his manager about the situation
D. Call the police and report the illegal practice.
A: Dean spoke to Anne while they were having lunch and discovered that Anne did not even realise it was a hazardous chemical waste that she was disposing of. Anne was most upset to find out she had been doing the wrong thing.
Dean and Anne decided to investigate how to dispose of the waste correctly and found out they needed to contact a licenced chemical disposal company to safely remove the waste.
Dean and Anne also decided to speak to their manager immediately to notify them of their findings and what had happened.
What if Dean had made a different choice?
B: Ignore the problem. If Dean had done this, he may have felt work stress because he knew he wasn't doing his part to report what he saw. The problem will continue until someone else notices it and he will likely carry that feeling until it is managed properly. It would probably also cause friction with his workplace relationship with Anne.
C: Speak to his manager about the situation. This is another good option, if he didn't feel comfortable talking to Anne. He would have to hope that Anne wouldn't be upset with him for not coming to her first, so she didn't feel betrayed.
D: Call the police and report the illegal practice. This is a bit over the top and would likely cause Dean grief with the management and Annie, and would probably cause Dean more work stress as a result.
Robert SwanThe greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.
Accountability
By monitoring our own work performance and self-assessing, we can make positive changes to improve our practices. But often, this is not enough and we need to work together with our workmates and our managers to improve as a team. In most organisations, employees work within a management framework. In a way, everyone is accountable to someone.
As you can see, even the CEO reports to someone. As our upline managers usually monitor our performance, they can be a fantastic resource to discuss improvements in work practices with, especially if your values align with the business's strategies.
Case Study: Chris
Chris is a retail assistant working at KC Hi Fi. Chris has noticed that every morning when he comes into work, the lights, air-conditioning, and main office computer have been left on overnight.
Verina, who is responsible for closing at night, has not been following the closing procedure. While Chris and Verina are on a break in the staffroom when their shifts overlap, Chris gently reminds Verina to turn off the lights, air conditioning, and computer when closing up to reduce energy waste.
Verina apologises as she has been completely forgetting to do it. She makes a note so she will not forget in the future.
Think: How did Chris do? (Hint: excellent.)
Reporting breaches
How can you help?
See something, say something.
Helping improve the safety and sustainability of the workplace is every employee’s responsibility, including yours. When you identify an area for improvement and have a suggestion, you should share it with your manager or other team members (or both) so that everyone can benefit.
How you present feedback and recommendations for solutions will influence their success. You will need to think about:
- the area for improvement.
- who it should be reported to
- any organisational policies and procedures for providing feedback
- the relative level of risk
- the nature of your recommendations.
The more prepared you are for the meeting, the easier you will find it to convince the people involved that the change is worth the cost. You can bring them across the line since you'll already have evaluated the suggested changes against the list above and any specific issues related to the business or industry.
When to present feedback
Choosing an appropriate time to present your ideas is important and will depend on the issue and your suggestions.
For example, if the feedback relates to an immediate risk to staff and customers—such as a leaking roof where water is creating a falling hazard—before you consider giving the feedback to higher management, you should clean up, place warning signage and then immediately report to the OH&S representative.
In another example, over a period of two working weeks, you have noticed some staff making disparaging or joking comments about a co-worker that may constitute workplace bullying. As this can be quite a sensitive issue, great care should be taken about who, how and when to provide feedback on this issue.
Remember: Employees that carefully consider suggestions for improvement, follow the appropriate channels of reporting and do so in a polite and considerate way are highly regarded by upline management.
Feedback Processes
Many companies will present opportunities to discuss feedback on a range of topics. In smaller companies, a relaxed discussion during a team meeting where suggestions are shared with the workgroup may be appropriate. In larger organisations, particularly where suggestions may be more complex, a written report system may be used to report suggestions for improvement.
In the example above, it may seem obvious that Chris has a duty to say something. However, many employees choose not to say anything. Can you think of some reasons why?
Fear - Often people are afraid of getting others into trouble or of being labelled a snitch or a dobber.
Self-Esteem - People with low self-esteem may find it more difficult to speak up.
Reflection
What would you do?
You have been working for an organisation for a few months and tend to be one of the last to leave in the afternoon. You notice that just about every single workstation has a computer/laptop still open and switched on, even though the onboarding course you took said everyone was expected to shut down their workstations at the end of the workday. Since you were new you haven't said anything.
Solution: It's a good idea to do the right thing, even when others aren't, so you hopefully continued to shut down your workstation, even if you weren't prepared to advise others to do the same thing.
But now that you have been there a while, it's starting to grate on you because it doesn't match the sustainability goals of the business or you.
Solution: Since there are too many people to tackle this problem individually, it would be appropriate to bring the issue to HR, or your direct supervisor and ask them to talk to the team. You may like to remind them not to divulge to your coworkers that you brought up the issue. They will usually understand and appreciate the request.
You will need to understand your organisation’s hierarchy to know the appropriate department or staff member to report issues and breaches to. The following table is a common reporting structure for a few issues you may encounter at work.
| Problem | Report to... |
|---|---|
| Safety breach | If you see someone using plant or equipment and they are not trained or are using it incorrectly, report it to the Occupational Health and Safety representative, where you will most likely fill out a risk report. |
| Workplace bullying | You may find people tease, or make fun of you for standing up for our environment. Don't take it! Refer to your HR team, or your direct supervisor. Don't feel you need to approach them directly if you are not comfortable to do so. |
| Non-compliance | You may find colleagues are knowingly not being compliant with sustainability processes and procedures in place. In that case, you may report it to Human Resources, or your own manager, or, as in Dean's example, start with your colleague and go from there. |
The important thing is to understand the appropriate person and process in your organisation to ensure anything that needs to be reported is done appropriately, so it can be acted upon.
