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Environmental Management
Environmental management is the identification, assessment and mitigation of an organisation’s impacts on the natural environment. These impacts are caused by the organisation’s activities and operations. Trident Environment can assist in the following areas:
- Environmental Management Systems
- Environmental Advisory
- Erosion and Sediment Control
- Environmental Monitoring
- Environmental Awareness Training
Management System Development
An Environmental Management System (EMS) and/ or an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) are important parts of an organisation’s governance model and form the basis of how an organisation mitigates its impacts on the environment arising from its activities. Higher-level EMSs or EMPs are structured in accordance with AS/ NZS ISO 14001:2016 and are audited at least annually.
Trident is very experienced in the development of construction or operational EMSs or EMPs that spell out exactly what is required for an organisation to do in order to mitigate its environmental impacts. The benefits to having a professionally developed EMS or EMP range from complying with a client or planning requirement and having good corporate stewardship to achieving ISO accreditation for tendering purposes.
Having an Environmental Management System shows that your organisation has made a comprehensive commitment to mitigate the impacts of its operations on the natural environment. It is a part of modern corporate responsibility and proves to your insurers that your organisation intends to control its level of environmental risk. It may also be a prequalification requirement before being allowed to do business with government or private clients.
An environmental management system is the complete suite of documentation which usually includes the organisation’s environmental policy, the environmental management plan itself, impact-specific sub-plans, procedures and monitoring tools such as forms or checklists.
Broadly, an environmental management plan should have sections describing the following areas:
- The organisation’s background and the scope of the EMP
- A description of leadership roles and responsibilities of people who will implement the EMP
- Planning and risk assessment of the organisation’s aspects and impacts
- Support, resources, competence, awareness, communication
- Control of operations including how the organisation will implement the EMP
- How and when the implementation of the EMP will be evaluated (e.g. management reviews or auditing)
- How nonconformities will be corrected and how the system will be improved
Environmental Advisory
Your organisation’s environmental or sustainability policies and plans need to be implemented so that your environmental and regulatory risks remain under control. Trident is able to advise your organisation on how to best implement these policies and plans in order for you to remain competitive and compliant.
Trident also offers general environmental and sustainability consultation to organisations that intend to expand or change their activities and their environmental footprint. Trident are able to review any existing environmental documentation or systems prepared by others for applicability or gap analysis. Changes to these documents can be also be progressed.
The first step in managing an organisation’s environmental risk is for top management to create and approve a formal environmental policy that applies to the entire organisation. Once a policy is in place, management systems can then support the policy by managing the detailed risk and driving continual improvement.
An organisation’s environmental policy is a formal statement from its top management that publicly communicates the commitment and the intention to minimise or even eliminate that organisation’s impacts on the environment. This formal statement is taken as a prime directive for all employees, contractors, visitors and other entities under the control or management of that organisation.
The main function of the environmental policy is to set the direction for environmental risk control within that organisation. The policy should broadly state that environmental impacts should be identified, assessed and mitigated effectively. Additionally, the environmental policy forms the key organisational guidance for the management systems built upon it.
Erosion and Sediment Control
A major risk to any construction project involving earthwork or land clearing is the possibility of stormwater pollution caused by rainfall on disturbed ground moving sediment into municipal drainage systems. Fines for this offence can be significant.
Fortunately, this risk can be managed by implementing an Erosion and Sediment Control Plan (ESCP) for the site. Trident have the specialist expertise to rapidly develop comprehensive ESCPs for any site or scale of work. All ESCPs developed by Trident comply with the requirements of Managing Urban Stormwater: Soils and Construction – Volumes 1 & 2’ (4th ed Landcom 2004) – known as the Blue Book.
For larger sites or infrastructure projects, Trident are able to develop Soil and Water Management Plans or Rapid Stabilisation Plans per project needs.
Erosion and sediment control are the reduction of a site’s potential to cause water pollution during rainfall events from mobilised sediment entering the municipal’s stormwater drainage system. Good erosion and sediment control are achieved through a mixture of detailed construction site planning/ configuration, suppression of soil erosion and installation of environmental controls meant to catch mobilised sediment and protect drainage systems.
Like any other aspect of construction, the establishment of erosion and sediment controls must be guided by design documentation. Erosion and sediment control plans specify exactly where the controls must be established, how they should be built and how the site should be managed. Importantly, the plan usually states the amount of rainfall (called a ‘design storm’) that the controls have been designed to withstand. In the event of regulatory interest, having fully implemented a competently developed erosion and sediment control plan may be advantageous.
Minimising soil erosion is the most effective way to control the sediment yield of any construction site. Detailed construction site planning throughout the entire construction process also ensures that disturbed ground is kept to a minimum for as long as possible and environmental controls are effective throughout the construction program.
Environmental Monitoring Systems
In some situations, your organisation’s activities might be in close contact with your surrounding environment and may even have a direct impact on it (for example, noise, traffic or discharges to air or waters). Environmental monitoring provides your organisation with an understanding of precisely how much your activities are impacting the receiving environment relative to background levels. Trident can develop monitoring programs that comply with legal, planning or environmental licensing requirements and can also provide advice to you on how to implement these systems in order to remain compliant.
Generally, the purposes of environmental monitoring are:
- To establish a baseline or ‘background level’ of pollutants that are already present in the environment
- To measure the pollutants emitted by an activity and then compare these levels to an established baseline
- To understand the impact that these emissions have on the environment and to guide an organisation’s response in mitigating the impact
Environmental monitoring data is used to understand the size of the impact and the consequential effects of particular emissions on the environment and human health. The monitoring data is also used to inform risk assessments and as guidance in the selection and implementation of mitigation measures meant to offset these effects.
Care must be exercised in designing a monitoring plan so that the data generated by the monitoring regime will be reliable, consistent and not adversely affected by external interference. It is important to ensure that the data collected will be truly representative of the activities being monitored. Where previous background monitoring was completed, subsequent monitoring should align with the locations, times, methods and instrument sensitivity previously used so that a fair and truthful comparison of data can be made during analysis.
Environmental Awareness Training
Many aspects of environmental management require your contractors, visitors, staff or workforce to perform or refrain from certain activities in order for your environmental mitigations to be fulfilled. Trident are able to develop training and even assessment packages that educate your people about the intent and content of your environmental plans or systems. This type of training spreads the knowledge of your environmental obligations and supports employee accountability. We are able to arrange for this training to take a variety of forms such as classroom style, workshop style or training conducted within a real or simulated work environment. Please enquire below so we may discuss your particular requirements.
Environmental awareness training systematically informs your employees, contractors, consultants and visitors of your organisation’s impacts on the environment and the mitigations required to offset them. These mitigations are typically actions or prohibitions required of your employees so that these mitigations are physically implemented.
Training your employees, consultants, contractors and visitors in environmental awareness shows that your organisation promotes a shared responsibility of managing your environmental impacts. It also shows that your organisation invests in ensuring all staff and workers know how to support your environmental policy through their actions at work. Additionally, the level of awareness training is often checked by auditors to understand how well your organisation promotes your environmental policy message.