Workplace Sustainability Policy Report: NAB & Environmental Focus

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of workplace sustainability policies, focusing on the National Australia Bank (NAB) as a case study. It addresses the development, communication, implementation, and review of a sustainability policy within the workplace. The report explores the importance of sustainability in the modern business environment, referencing the green movement and relevant legislation, such as the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). It examines NAB's current initiatives and proposes strategies like work-from-home options, paperless systems, and renewable energy adoption. The report also delves into the challenges of policy communication and implementation, including employee accountability and potential barriers. Furthermore, it discusses the review process, cost-saving benefits, and the impact on NAB's reputation and employee retention. Finally, the report concludes with a discussion of future strategies and how the bank can further improve workplace sustainability to benefit the environment and the company's stakeholders.

WORKPLACE SUSTAINABILITY
STUDENT DETAILS
STUDENT DETAILS

ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY 1
In this essay, there will be a discussion about workplace sustainability. As, most of the people
spend more time in the office than in their home. Thus, it is extremely important that their
workplace should pursue all the norms of a healthy and sustainable work environment in an
effective and efficient way. The selected company for this essay is the National Australia
Bank (NAB). NAB is counted in one of the four largest financial institutions in Australia in
terms of market capitalization, earnings and customers. As of 2014, it operated 1590 branches
with 4412 ATMs across Australia. In this essay, there will be a discussion about the
workplace sustainability policy in the NBA.
Assessment 1
Workplace sustainability policy
With the green movement in Australia, NAB forms a sustainability policy. As green
movement aims that sustainability is the capacity to meet with or fulfill important human
needs without putting an adverse effect on the future generation. The core concept of
sustainability aims at utilizing natural resources at an identical level with Nature or the
environment's ability to replenish it. Sustainability policies help an organization to minimize
their wastage and allows them to save cost. For example: when an organization adopts for
making a policy such as to adopt the methods for paper recycling can help the management to
avoid tonnes of forestry products plus water and energy (Yoshikawa and Kogi, 2019).
While making a sustainability policy NAB gains information from the Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). This is Australia's national
environment law which empowers the organization to adopt the workplace sustainability
policy in order to put a positive effect on the environment in an effective and efficient way.
CEO. Ross McEwan announces to commit $70billion to environmental financing by 2025 to
succour the country in addressing major issued from climate change. Apart from this, the

ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY 2
company can adopt various strategies for workplace sustainability such as replacing light
bulbs with low-level energy bulbs such as LEDs, CFLs, etc. Allowing employees to take
work from home once a week. Giving an extra incentive to those employees who use public
transport to travel or adopts carpools, etc (Wolf, et. al., 2018).
The company can adopts the policy of allowing employees to take work from home once a
week because it will help them in experiencing enhanced productivity of the employees and
when there will be fewer employees in the office for a particular day in the week then it will
also beneficial for the company because it will help the management to save the cost of the
lights. For insistence. As of 2014, there are 1590 branches in the country, when the company
chooses to allow their employee for a wok then it can save around $100,000 for a month
(Nab.com.au, 2019). Adopting this sustainability policy will help an organization in
reflecting its commitment to sustainability as an integral part of business planning. The
environment and sustainability commitment of the NAB define that they care about the planet
by adopting a sustainable approach for managing their business and to help their customers
(Turi and Sorooshian, 2019).
Communication of workplace sustainability policy
It is observed that employees play less attendance to the sustainability policies that are
adopted by the employers. Even worse is that many CEO of the big corporation in Australia
take genuine efforts to reduce the negative environment efforts but they fail at the ground
level when employees do not pay attention and act effectively in order to implement the
policy (Letts, 2019). In this paragraph, there will be a discussion about the communication of
workplace sustainability policy. Here, communicating sustainability policy implies
establishing effective communication between the management and employees so that
employees can effectively take action on the sustainability policy of the company. As, only

ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY 3
after the effective contribution of the employees, the company can accomplish their
sustainability goals (Rayome, 2019).
Here, in order to effectively communicating workplace sustainability among the employees,
it is important that the company should set such policies that can grab the interest of the
employees in an effective and efficient way. The suggested polity to allow work from home
for once a week is design while taking care of the interest of the employees. This
sustainability policy will have two major effects. First, it will enhance the motivation and
productivity of the employees. Second, it will help the management in establishing effective
sustainability work culture in their company. While communicating this policy to the
workforce, the company can experience immediate results because employees will show their
high satisfaction level towards this policy and after this, the management can implement
other sustainability principles on the employees such as switching off the light after use,
using LED’s or CFL’s, utilizing paper cups, etc (Jinnett, et. al., 2017).
Implementation of workplace sustainability policy
The suggested strategy will be undergone with three stages for effective implementation.
Moreover, NAB will not face a major challenge in implementing this policy because this
strategy also involves the interest of the employees with measures to environmental
sustainability. NAB may face a challenge in the accountability of this policy because it may
hamper the productivity of the employees at their home because home is defined as the
comfortable zone for a person (Ferreira, Davis and Stevenson, 2016).
In the implementation process, the first stage for this strategy defines that the management
should make the process for the accountability of the employee's performance when they are
submitting their work from home. At the second stage, NAB need to implement the
performance management process for other sustainability because just after implementing

ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY 4
this policy it can be estimated that employees will be complete satisfaction at that time
management should also empower employees for following other sustainability practices
because effective results of the implementation of sustainability policy only drive when all
the employees of the company put their efforts. In the third stage, the management should
remember that allowing work from home for all the employees at the same time can put an
adverse effect on their customers (Chintrakarn, et. al., 2018). Thus, the human resource team
of the NAB should make the roster of the group of employees who are eligible for a fixed
date of work from home. In this way, the management can gain positive output from all the
three sides such as positive output from following their sustainability strategy, the positive
output from enhanced employee productivity, from the high satisfaction level from the
customers and from the government. As already discussed, in Australia, NAB has to follow
the guidelines issued by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
(EPBC Act) (Dutra, et. al., 2016).
Review of policy
This strategy will help the company in cost-saving benefits because it will lead to the reduce
wastage of natural resources such as electricity, water, less maintenance, etc. Apart from this,
while critically reviewing this policy it is obtained that it will enhance the reputation of NAB
among the market. In the market, NAB will gain benefits in terms of enhanced reputation
because the management can advertise that they do not just make the sustainability policy
instead the company follows such policies. The company can also experience less employee
attrition rates and improve productivity. However, the company has to make an effective
setup for monitoring and evaluating the performance of the employees whosoever are
working from their home. Apart from this, the company also has to make policies regarding
the work from home compliance so that important information of the clients can be safe and
protected (Buhai, Cottini and Westergaard‐Nielsen, 2017).

ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY 5
Assessment 2
Task 1
The government has made the guidelines for environmental sustainability which should be
followed by the associations. In Australia, the legal agencies are accountable for issuing
measures through which an organization can effectively reduce the carbon emissions, energy
waste and wastage of other natural resources. In Australia, environmental management issues
include reducing utilization of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and ozone-depleting
substances, reducing office wastage which should include building waste with resource
recovery. Former Secretary Ms. Kathryn Campbell CSC said that an organization should
obey the legal obligations and they should focus on adopting production measures so that
there will minimise pollution. Apart from this, the former secretary also said an organization
can also work in applying with a systematic environmental management approach that is
consistent with the international standard ISO 14001 (Baba, et. al., 2019).
In Australia, the concept of environmental policy integration (EPI), designs the policy outline
of sustainable development with a focus area on providing the essential framework. The
sustainable development management system (SDMS) empowers the company through
which they create strong corporate governance in their area of sustainability. The company
allows following the policy and process of the UN sustainable development in order to
effectively implement the principles of environment and workplace sustainability. The
management of the company also reviews its sustainable development policies in the period
of time (Ali, 2016).
NAB has the mission for the environmental sustainability in which the CEO. Ross McEwan
stated that till 2025 the company is moving towards the commitment to contribute $70b
towards environmental financing that will help the management in addressing climate

ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY 6
change. After reviewing the official website of the company, it is mention that the company
had reduced the paper uses by 43% in the year 2015 and they had already completed their
renewable energy transactions with 130 points in the year 2003 (Baba, et. al., 2019). Apart
from this, while implementing the strategy the company can face typical barrier in
maintaining the accountability of the work. As it is noticed that while implementing any
workplace sustainability program, an organization faces adverse challenge mainly from the
internal factor. Here, NAB may face the typical barrier form maintaining the accountability
of the employees who are working from their home.
Task 2
After the suggested strategy in assessment 1, NAB can also utilize other sustainability ideas
in their workplace. First, adopting the paperless system because it will effectively help the
company to contribute to workplace sustainability. However, it is suggested that NAB can
implement the AI and Machine learning system because it can help them in fulfilling their
goals completely discourage the utilization of the papers. Second, the company can create a
monthly green challenge for its employees (Ferreira, Davis and Stevenson, 2016). For
example: the company can set activities for its employees to utilize utensils that are made
from other than the plastic material. Third, the company can also go to embrace renewable
energy. In this, the management should set up the green power sources that should include
solar and wind energy including rooftop solar installations with large scale wind farms
(Chintrakarn, et. al., 2018).
These measures can be easily implemented in the NAB but while implementation the bank
can face the major challenge when their employees do not pay effective attention in indulging
these environment sustainability programs. Moreover, NAB should implement these
measures with two fundamental goals that are these sustainability workplace ideas are
beneficial for the environment and these are cost reduction measures. It is suggested that the

ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY 7
bank should focus on the implementation of AI and machine learning because it will help
them in various ways such as improve operations, reduce the load on the workforce, more
accurate results, better results in environment and workplace sustainability programs, etc.
This sustainability program can increase the profitability of the bank that will put a positive
effect on the stakeholders of the company. As the rise in profit level will directly reflect in the
share price of the company. Currently, the share price of the NAB is $25.61 (Nab.com.au,
2019). At the hypothesis level, if NAB successfully contributed $70b out of their profitability
in the environment sustainable program then their share prices will show a positive increment
which will put the positive effect on the shareholders in an effective and efficient way.
It is concluded that NAB can implement the workplace sustainability policy in accordance
with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). In
this essay, it is analysis even after the genuine efforts of the CEO and upper level
management, the company still many challenges mainly because their workforce does not
show their interest. In this strategy, it is suggested that the company should implement the
workplace sustainability of allowing employees for operating work from home once a week.
The management should give a group of employees the allowance of work from home once a
week so that the less electricity and energy will be consume.

ENVIRONMENT SUSTAINABILITY 8
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