Assignment on Workplace Sustainability

This assignment discusses the importance of waste management and creating a sustainable environment in the workplace. It covers the types of waste, laws to be considered, policy formulation, communication, implementation, and evaluation. The policy should be based on prevention, preparing for reuse, recycling, other recovery, and disposal. The evaluation is the part where the success of the implementation of the policy is judged. The change in the waste produced and the impact on the environment will be measured so that it can be told to the internal and external stakeholder about the positive impact that it created on the environment by one small step.

Assignment on Workplace sustainability
Assignment on Workplace sustainability
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1Assignment on Workplace sustainability
Introduction
All the workplace produces waste may it be a commercial company, a construction
company or a service provider company. These places are under the human control and they
produces innumerable waste that affects the sustainability of the environment. As per the
estimates commercial and industrial waste is almost 75% of the 200 million tonnes of waste
generated in the Australia (Solow, 2019). This is a very big amount and this needs to be
controlled. A well designed system will not only minimize the waste but also save the
environment.
It has been seen that process and procedure which are ineffective only increase the cost
and byproducts. A proper waste management can only give the wanted result, it also requires
commitment from the organization. The job of clearing or minimizing the waste falls under the
remittance of the organization, thus it’s important that the step taken is also under the company’s
law and order (Laszlo & Zhexembayeva, 2017) . As per law anything that is scrap material,
unwanted surplus substance or any substance that needs to be disposed and can cause hazardous
affect is waste under Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Type of waste as per the general information is substance those are worn but functioning,
unwanted and useable only by waste recovery establishments, useable by other means only. This
is a range information gathered by observing the office premises, keeping an eye on the activities
around the corner, by talking to the cleaning guys. These information lead to the understanding
the management waste is a sole responsibility of the people who generate it.
The policy can be made only after consulting the internal and external stakeholders. They
might be the best personnel to accept or object certain rules that may fall under the policy. The
internal stakeholders are those who has the direct impact by implementation of the policy. The
external stakeholders are us and everyone connected by some means to the waste created in the
office space.
The policy should be made as per existing laws to protect the environment in Australia.
Some laws to be considered are Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act
1999, It guide us by providing a legal structure to protect the national and international vital
Fauna, Flora, Ecological communities and important Heritage places (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017).

2Assignment on Workplace sustainability
The Clean Energy Act 2011, it has made a method by which Australia can introduce a carbon
price to reduce carbon pollution. National greenhouse and energy reporting act 2007, this law has
laid down rules for the reporting and distribution of information associated to greenhouse gas
emissions, greenhouse gas projects, energy production and energy consumption. Comcare
Australia, it works to reduce the human and financial costs of workplace indirectly minimizing
the impact of waste creating (Liu et al. 2015).
The policy will be based on:
 Prevention means using less material, using it for a longer duration, and using materials
that are less hazardous to the environment.
 Preparing for reuse means checking, cleaning and repairing materials of use to avoid
them to become a waste.
 Recycling turns a object into a new product, many company emphasis on reusing the
object time and over again.
 Other recovery includes incineration.
 Disposal is the last option for a object after which it becomes absolute waste ending up as
landfill, or be incinerated without any energy being recovered.
The policy:
 The company should make safe and healthy products those are not hazardous to anyone
including animals or plants.
 They should minimize the use of papers, wooden substance or use of plastic to protect the
environment.
 There should be some rules that should be followed honestly and the company should keep a
check on performance.
 The company should invest in reuse or recycle plants where the excess waste can be treated
and used again. This may come under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) department
 Carbon neutral carpet. This should be followed by all the organization that when they are into
production of some material it should be carbon neutral.

3Assignment on Workplace sustainability
It is essential that the policy formulated reaches the stakeholder and they follow it.
Communication of the policy to them can happen in several ways. The internal stakeholder is the
top, middle and lower management. The top management is the authority to make changes and
implement any new rules. Thus the top management should issue official notification to all the
employees to follow the new waste management policy (Blok et al, 2015). They also have to
change their own company policy to check if their production is following the new policy.
To realize the positive outcome of the waste management policy they should arrange
meeting with the external stakeholders through conducting environment saving day and
organizing conferences where they can tell the impact of following the policy. The responsibility
of the in-charge should be clearly followed. The in-charge to take care of the policy
implementation should be appointed within the organization. The in-charge should be a
combined body of the board member and the new person from outside (De Lange et al. 2015).
Once the policy is formulated and the management has accepted it. It will be the primary
duty of the in-charge to implement the policy in the internal and the external stakeholders. The
communication procedure could be by giving training and organizing seminar for the internal
and external stakeholders. The seminars should only focus on the importance of the policy and
the impact on the long term positive environmental health. They should be involved by giving
rewards points when they clear the minimum level of environmental protection.
The frame has to efficiently manage the environmental impact and take care of the health
of people. The in-charge committee also has to look for the safety impacts of goods, limiting the
impact related with the disposal of goods (Staniškienė & Stankevičiūtė, 2018). The external
stakeholders can volunteer and co-regulate the product safety, minimizing the use of objects to
be a part of the policy.
The evaluation is the part where the success of the implementation of the policy is
judged. The change in the waste produced and the impact on the environment will be measured
son that it can be told to the internal and external stakeholder about the positive impact that it
created pm the environment by one small step. The in-charge should be documenting the total
usage of products in the office (Lamm, Tosti-Kharas, & King, 2015). What percentage change

4Assignment on Workplace sustainability
has been seen in usage of the office material, papers, and plastic. The in-charge will also check
the products used in the production line and should comment on it to the top management. The
policy can be modified time to time to bring the best for the environment. The modification
should be announced before it is implemented. Developing sustainable environmental policies in
workplace will create green environment in and out of the office which will profit people and
environment.

5Assignment on Workplace sustainability
Reference
Blok, V., Wesselink, R., Studynka, O., & Kemp, R. (2015). Encouraging sustainability in the
workplace: a survey on the pro-environmental behaviour of university
employees. Journal of cleaner production, 106, 55-67.
De Lange, A. H., Kooij, D. T. A. M., & Van der Heijden, B. I. J. M. (2015). Human resource
management and sustainability at work across the lifespan: An integrative
perspective. Facing the challenges of a multi-age workforce: A use-inspired approach,
50-79.
Geissdoerfer, M., Savaget, P., Bocken, N. M., & Hultink, E. J. (2017). The Circular Economy–A
new sustainability paradigm?. Journal of cleaner production, 143, 757-768.
Lamm, E., Tosti-Kharas, J., & King, C. E. (2015). Empowering employee sustainability:
Perceived organizational support toward the environment. Journal of Business
Ethics, 128(1), 207-220.
Laszlo, C., & Zhexembayeva, N. (2017). Embedded sustainability. In Embedded
Sustainability (pp. 116-140). Routledge.
Liu, J., Mooney, H., Hull, V., Davis, S. J., Gaskell, J., Hertel, T., ... & Li, S. (2015). Systems
integration for global sustainability. Science, 347(6225), 1258832.
Solow, R. M. (2019). 25. Sustainability: an economist’s perspective. Economics of the
environment: Selected readings.
Staniškienė, E., & Stankevičiūtė, Ž. (2018). Social sustainability measurement framework: The
case of employee perspective in a CSR-committed organisation. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 188, 708-719.

6Assignment on Workplace sustainability
Appendix
Work Cost chart
Activity
Time
Taken
Percentage of cost
reduction
Develop workplace sustainability policy
Formulation
2
months -
Approval 1 week -
Communicate workplace sustainability
policy
In-charge committee
formation
2
weeks
2% increased cost
for salary
Seminar / Workshops
1
month 10% increased cost
Internal
communication daily -
Implement workplace sustainability policy
Internal stakeholder
adaption
4
months
30% reduction in
cost
External stakeholder
adaption
6
months
20% reduction in
cost
Review workplace sustainability policy
implementation
Feedback
1
month 2% cost increased
data sheet collection
1
month 1% increased cost
usage measuring
1
month 1% increased cost