How to colour your business green
Our ‘green’ accreditation scheme provides your business with the opportunity to receive formal recognition in taking positive steps to proactively manage its environmental impacts.
It will also help your business to:
- Build its brand and position within the marketplace
- Satisfy supply chain and customer demands to ‘go green’
- Ensure legal compliance and decrease risk
- Identify ways to save money whilst reducing your environmental footprint
- Receive recognition whilst working towards obtaining formal accreditations such as ISO14001, EMAS, or carbon neutrality
The low-cost scheme is based on the international standard for environmental best practice (ISO14001:2004) and effectively ‘breaks this standard down’ into three logical, bite-sized, outcome-focused stages (namely Bronze, Silver and Gold).
Each stage contains a number of achievement criteria taken directly from ISO14001:2004, which if successfully completed, enables you to create an environmental management system (EMS) tailored to your site in the most logical, cost effective and time efficient manner possible.
Bronze Level Accreditation
Foundation level, focusing on gaining and maintaining formal management commitment, the establishment of an environmental base line, and taking action to start to address your environmental footprint.
For your site to achieve Bronze Level Accreditation you will need to provide evidence including (but not limited to):
- A formal environmental policy statement signed by Senior Management
- A formal environmental management structure - highlighting environmentally related roles and responsibilities
- A completed baseline environmental review including an environmental risk assessment/aspects and impacts analysis
- A basic environmental monitoring program which will enable you to track your performance over time
- Basic environmental objectives and targets for your site to strive to achieve
- Implementation of a basic staff environmental awareness raising program
- A basic environmental improvement/action plan - outlining how your site will take action to strive to achieve its environmental
- objectives and targets
Silver Level Accreditation
Intermediate level, focusing on environmental conformance and risk management, internal awareness raising, and the establishment of a formal environmental management program.
For your site to achieve Silver Level Accreditation you will need to satisfy the requirements of bronze level accreditation and provide additional evidence including (but not limited to):
- Proof of compliance with relevant environmental legislation and other requirements relating to your organisation
- Proof that environmentally related standard operational control procedures are in place
- A basic Emergency Preparedness and Response (EP&R) procedure covering environmental incidents/accidents
- Proof that your organisation has communicated its environmental policy, objectives and targets to its key stakeholders
- A formalised management program detailing how your site is proactively managing its environmental performance
Gold Level Accreditation
Top level, focusing on the successful implementation and operation of environmental systems, policies and procedures to ‘best practice’ standards. Gold level effectively ‘doubles’ as an ISO14001 pre-certification audit - which informs you how close you are to being able to achieve ISO14001
certification.
For your site to achieve Gold Level Accreditation you will need to satisfy the requirements of silver level accreditation and provide additional evidence including (but not limited to):
- A formal environmental manual defining the scope of your environmental management system (EMS) that is in place
- A formal strategy for handling internal and external environmental communications
- A formal document control and record keeping system is in place (e.g. these may be part of your quality systems or similar)
- A formal environmental audit program ensuring any non-conformances are corrected/preventative action is taken to
- comply with your environmental objectives, targets and policy commitments
- Formal management reviews have taken place to review the environmental management program on a regular basis
- Evidence of improved environmental performance
How to apply
To register for our Green Accreditation Scheme or to find out more about how our environmental specialists can help your organisation with its environmental goals, contact our Customer Service Centre on 08 8300 0103 or e-mail customerservice@business-sa.com
