Environmental Management Case of Olympic Park

The report analyses environmental management activities and approaches undertaken by Olympic Delivery Authority for managing the construction of Olympic Park site in east London 2012. It covers information about mitigation practices, ISO 14001, construction management, main concerns and their resolution, measures for noise and dust issues, and key factors in waste management.

Environmental management case of
Olympic Park

Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Discussion..................................................................................................................................1
1. What mitigation undertaken by Olympic Delivery Authority before starting
construction?..........................................................................................................................1
2. What does ISO 14001 mean?.............................................................................................1
3. How the Olympic Park’s construction managed?..............................................................2
4. What were the main concerns and how they were resolved?.............................................2
5. Measures undertaken to address issues of noise and dust?................................................3
6. Key factors in waste management?....................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................4
References..................................................................................................................................5

Introduction
The report will analyse environmental management activities and approaches that
undertaken by Olympic Delivery Authority for managing the construction of Olympic Park
site in east London 2012. The report will involve information about mitigation that Olympic
Delivery Authority has taken and purpose of ISO 14001. Moreover, the report will analyse
how the construction was managed and what was the main concern about the surrounding. At
the end, the report will discuss 2 measures that undertaken to address the issues of noise and
dust.
Discussion
1. What mitigation undertaken by Olympic Delivery Authority before starting construction?
Before starting the construction for Olympic Park, the Olympic Delivery Authority
has undertaken the various practices. The major practices that used involve the development
of planning and prior permission for managing the operation of a project with local and
national authorities. The consideration of health and safety environmental standards has
played a critical role in maintaining risk-free activities and optimum utilization of resources.
In addition to this, the codes of construction practices are considering the environmental
health and safety standards and procedure. To implement the decisions, the management has
conduct meeting with statuary bodies including Environmental Agency and London boroughs
of Newham (Nicholas and Steyn, 2017). The prior planning has helped management to
mitigate risk issues and involvement of tools and technology that was less harmful to
environment and used under the code of construction practices. Health and safety was a prior
concern of management for maintaining the excellence in working and meeting the
objectives. In addition to this, a system of inspection and monitoring of activities has been
used for completion of the project within the environmental management framework.
2. What does ISO 14001 mean?
ISO 14000 is a series of environmental management standards that provide a
guideline for organizations that need to determine a systematic process of environmental
efforts management. For environmental management, ISO 14001 has a significant impact on
ISO 14000 series. This standard based on the Plan-Check-Do-Review-Improve cycle for
managing the project and meets the objectives. The ISO 14001 plan involve at beginning of
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the project of ODA Park development and checking deals with correcting the errors in
environmental planning. The ODA has also undertaken ISO 14001 for managing the quality
of the project to meet objectives more professional manners (Larsson and et al. 2017). By
using this ISO standard, ODA has planned operations, identified the issue of incidents and
encouraged the overall quality of construction project of Olympic Park. For this project ISO
14001 has used for regular review of licenses and consents to ensure compliance with a legal
and regulatory framework. This system enables tracking of all incidents and boundary
environmental monitoring of the Olympic Park Site.
3. How the Olympic Park’s construction managed?
In order to complete the construction work and manage the operations and functions
the Olympic Delivery Authority has distributed the role and responsibilities to managers and
staff members. This kind of approach has helped to maintain the systematic development,
monitoring and completion of operations. By appointing the environmental managers for
each project the ODA increase the monitoring of tasks and identifications of issues to make
prior changes in activities and proper utilization of resources. Moreover, for managing the
construction project, ODA has conducted monthly meetings and share the progress and issues
with Environmental Agency and British Waterways (Memon and et al. 2014). In the
meetings, the workers and manager have shared the issues and ideas for managing the
outcomes in efficient manners that have a significant impact on the successful delivery of
construction project. The relationship of ODA with both environmental agencies was good
that has helped to gain their support and managing the operations under their guidance. The
project team has followed direction and instruction for managing the project. These agencies
have shared practical guidelines for managing the environmental activities.
4. What were the main concerns and how they were resolved?
For construction of Olympic Park, the leading management committee has the major
concern on flood risk and loss of species due to use of construction material and chemicals.
In addition to this, there was dominance of foreign plants. In order to solve the issues and
make the construction work smooth and risk-free, the ODA has taken the help of London
Wildlife Trust and Natural England and Environmental Agency. For ecological management,
the ODA has clearly set the code of practices for management of habitats and wildlife. The
consideration of code and practices that proposed by London Wildlife has helped in an
application of appropriate short and slung term mitigation for loss of habitat. Moreover, the
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organization has appointed the on-site ecologist for managing the plant and species
(Schwalbe, 2015). The extensive program used for species translocation to remove the
species from the site. ODA has also produced a biodiversity action plan which provides the
protection of tree and habits during the construction program.
5. Measures undertaken to address issues of noise and dust?
In order to manage the issues of noise and dust, there were some measures undertaken
by the construction team that involves different drilling methods, standard working hours and
consideration of policies of pollution. The methods that used include sprays to minimize the
wind-blown dust and a weather station was also set up at the site operations for offering the
weather information to develop the schedule for managing potential dusty activities. The best
practices for managing the noise and dust at site location was the use of horizontal drilling
and diamond cutting of slab. For managing dusty and noise pollution, the ODA management
has set the standard working hours for operations in which the surrounding population may
not get affected. The environmental team has worked actively with its community
engagement team for managing the project and conducted the meetings for protecting the
nearby areas like schools and residential buildings from noise and dust (Sears and et al.
2015). The code of practices that have a significant impact on addressing the issues of noise
and dust were implemented. ODA has worked according to Control of Pollution Act 1947
section 61 for managing the health and reduction of potential application for noise and dust.
In addition to this, regular monitoring has helped to overcome issues of noise and dust for
nearby locations.
6. Key factors in waste management?
For effective waste management, the ODA has faced various issues like lack of
planning and adopting the waste management hierarchy, hiring of contract waste specialists
to sort the sources and waste management training. However, the ODA has implemented
centralized waste management practices for on-site waste consolidation but lack of
monitoring and improper utilization of resources lead to environmental issues. The waste
management manager also appointed for complying regulations and waste management but
the lack of segregation of the waste management sources has affected the implementation of
the plan. For broad site, the large waste management facilities were required but the
inadequate use of control measures have affected the transfer of wasted collected from one
point. According to study, the 95% of waste at the construction site was either reused or
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recycled at the end (Fewings, 2013). The proper consideration of waste training program has
encouraged site workers to maintain the quality approach to minimize the waste and improve
the vehicle movement to transfer of waste to off-site locations. The responsibilities have been
given to workers and manager was effectively completed by them that contributed to the
proper management of waste.
Conclusion
From the study, it has been considered that ODA has managed the construction
project successfully by developing a proper plan, consideration of policies and use of a
standard for maintaining the quality of operations. The report has provided brief detail about
how the construction was managed and measures that has been undertaken for noise, dust and
waste management.
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References
Fewings, P., 2013. Construction project management: an integrated approach. Routledge.
Larsson, J., Eriksson, P.E. and Pesämaa, O., 2017. The importance of hard project
management and teammotivation for construction project performance. International
Journal of Managing Projects in Business/Emerald.
Memon, A.H., Rahman, I.A., Abdullah, M.R. and Azis, A.A.A., 2014. Factors affecting
construction cost performance in project management projects: Case of MARA large
projects. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, 1(1).
Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and
technology. Taylor & Francis.
Schwalbe, K., 2015. Information technology project management. Cengage Learning.
Sears, S.K., Sears, G.A., Clough, R.H., Rounds, J.L. and Segner, R.O., 2015. Construction
project management. John Wiley & Sons.
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