Environmental management goes online

22 Jun 2011

Broadcast Australia takes the next step towards a greener future with the certification of its Environmental Management System, in conjunction with a new intranet portal that provides access to all employees.

On 21 April, Broadcast Australia's new Environmental Management System (EMS) intranet portal came online—together with one for its Quality Management System—to complement the existing OH&S Management System portal. According to Broadcast Australia's Environmental Compliance Coordinator, Suzanne Mildren, this new portal will be one of the primary tools to help the company improve its environmental performance.

The company achieved ISO14001 certification for its EMS on 1 April 2011. "We are not required by law to have an EMS in place," Suzanne explained. "This was a purely voluntary step for us—but an important one. Broadcast Australia recognises that continual green improvements are only possible through the development, achievement and monitoring of clear and measurable environmental objectives and targets."

Aspects, impacts and objectives

For ease of use, the EMS has been drawn up to exactly match the sections within the ISO14001 standard. It describes the company's environmental policy, and lists the significant environmental aspects that have been identified, along with the impacts and risks associated with them. It covers all legal requirements, with a comprehensive register of all environmental legislation relevant to the business, organised according to the environmental aspect to which it relates.

A crucial element of the EMS is the list of objectives and targets, developed to improve environmental performance over time. "We have already achieved our first objective, which was to get the system certified," said Suzanne. "Our other principal objectives mainly relate to improving our energy performance—an area of great importance given the high energy requirements of our industry."

One objective of the EMS is to meet the stringent reporting requirements of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting and Energy Efficiency Opportunities legislation. To this end, the company is already halfway through installing energy sub-metering at 14 key sites. "This will enable us to precisely measure our energy usage and determine where savings can be made," said Suzanne.

Optimising awareness

The new portal gives all employees access to the EMS. "Gone are the days where environmental issues were only the concern of the environmental manager," said Suzanne. "This system allows all staff to use the EMS as a resource to ensure efforts are optimised at every level to improve environmental performance."

Although it is still early days, the company is already seeing an increased environmental awareness permeating through all departments. "We have made good environmental management decisions in the past," said Suzanne, "However, the combination of the EMS and the intranet portal means that we can now approach environmental management in a far more structured way than ever before possible. This will facilitate efforts to reduce our environmental impact, and ensure we run a sustainable business into the future."

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