Sustainability Practices For Business Organizations

Implementation of Sustainability Policy

Discuss about the Bcsoft Pty Ltd Sustainability Project.

Sustainability practices are essential for improving and maintaining profitability of every business organization. BC Software Pty Ltd (BCSoft) as an I.T organization has identified such an area for implementation for its growth. This has been done in order to maximize the company’s utilization of resources and improve productivity with the following major goals:

1. Reduce consumption of materials and equipment.
2. Improve energy efficiency.
3. Increase space utilization.
4. Reduce electronic and office waste.

In order to accomplish these objectives, sustainability approaches in the workplace, development and implementation of sustainability policies was formed[1].

A committee of seven members was formed to oversee the accomplishment of the sustainability objectives. The major roles to be played by each member were outlined as follows:

The sustainability policy will oversee how the company’s activities or rather how the productivity of the company can be improved to ensure proper utilization of the available raw materials to maximize the output and minimize the production costs as well as reduce the pollution of the environment by the company’s production activities[2].

In the development of the sustainability policy, a consideration of information obtained from various sources was made. The sources and the information to be obtained from each source are as shown:

The information gathered from the various sources will aid in planning and developing the policy in the best way possible.

Strategies were formulated at all stages of work to show production efficiency can be achieved. In order to come up with ways in which production efficiency can be achieved within the company, committee members held several meetings to discuss their findings as per the roles assigned. The meetings had the following agendas[3]:

1. How can the company’s production equipments be utilized effectively to increase productivity and minimize the production costs?
2. How can the production floor be arranged to avoid commotion during production?
3. How can the energy consumption by the company’s production activities be minimized to reduce the energy bills?
4. How can the office waste be minimized or if it’s a must to be produced how can it be treated before it’s released to the environment to ensure that it does not pollute the environment?

The minutes of the various meetings held were written and preserved by the secretary. The meetings majorly involved the discussion of the various agendas to come up with solutions. The following strategies were formulated to aid in improving the production efficiency in terms of reducing resources’ wastage and conserving the environment:

• Any end product in the production process which can be recycled and reused in the production process should be done so. If the end product cannot be recycled again then it should be treated appropriately before it is released to the environment. For example, the company’s sewage water should be treated appropriately before being released into rivers to protect the aquatic life[4].
• Product design policy; the number of components used by the company to make a product should be minimized. This strategy in production helps in easy recycling or repairing of a product after the end of its useful life.
• Improving quality control and process monitoring policy; the number of the company’s reject batches should be minimized as much as possible. Inspection should be strict and increased rapidly.
• Reduction of the energy consumption policy; energy consumption in the company should be minimized as much as possible during productivity.
• Appropriate production process stages arrangement should be adopted.
• Procurement of efficient energy utilization equipments from identified manufacturers.
• Proper disposal of wasted computers.

The following recommendations were made from the various meetings held with the committee members and from consultations of various parties:

1. Recycling and reuse; the end products of production which are produced by the company should be recycled and reused. If the end products cannot be recycled then they should be treated before disposal. An example is the treatment of the company sewage before being released into rivers to safe the aquatic life [5].
2. Products should be made of few components for easy recycling or repairing in future to avoid dumping which may harm the environment.
3. Automation monitoring equipments if possible should be installed to detect defects in production at early steps. This helps reduce the rejected company’s products which may cause great loss.
4. All the production equipments which use electricity should be switched off if they are not being used. This helps lower the production costs.
5. Employees should be arranged properly in the production floor to avoid commotion. Specialization and division of labour should be considered in this task whereby employees undertake activities where they are most talented to avoid movements as they consult each other.
6. Wasted computers should be disposed properly. Computers are made of harmful metal and dangerous chemicals which include lead, mercury and beryllium among others. These chemicals can cause many diseases to human being if computer are not disposed well.

The workplace sustainability policy will be communicated to the concerned parties. A poster will be erased in the company for everyone to see. It will be specially designed and the following words written in it: “BC Software Pty Ltd, The future of our environment, Conserve and Protect Program is ongoing, committed to reducing resources wastage through recycling and reusing and proper means of disposal. Be responsible, play your part.”

Roles of the Committee Members

An email will be written to all the employees and the stakeholders notifying them of the program under progress whose major objective is to maximize resources utilization and conserve the environment. The dates for the program activities, the targeted number and the details of the committee members and anybody else concerned will be included[6].

As part of the implementation process, procedures on how to reduce resources usage, reuse and recycling of the end products for environmental conservation were formulated. These procedures include:

1. All the resources used in the production process should be recorded. For example, the number of reams used in the printing process.
2. The corresponding output should be checked to ensure that it is the expected output to minimize wastage.
3. All the end products should be gathered together for inspection. The materials which can be recycled and reused should be retained for recycling. The materials which cannot be recycled should be disposed safely.
4. The employees should be attached to their areas of specialization to improve the quality of the company’s productivity and minimize the rejects.
5. The employees should be encouraged on how to be responsible in the production process. For example switching off machines which are not being used.

During the presentation process, the following questions will be answered and any other relevant question to the sustainability process[7]:

1. How does environmental conservation improve our reputation to the surrounding community and the entire country?
2. How does self-responsibility in conserving the environment help us?

• How can we maximize the utilization of the available resources and improve productivity?

For continuous improvement in the resources utilization for the information technology department an automation machine should be installed. This will help monitor the production process and how the resources are being utilized. Any improvements should be done accordingly with advancement in technology[8].

 In order to track and record data which can be used to determine the improvement which should be made, a template of the various items was prepared for recording as shown.

The costs incurred in the production process by use of the above production devices are recorded for each month from January to December. The costs are used to indicate areas which require improve in terms of cost minimization.

The implementation of the sustainability policy ha positively impacted the company. The cost of the cartridges from the Green Business was reduced by 25% to 60%. Due to recycling of the cartridges, the company also receives a credit of $5 for each recycled cartridge. The company has also replaced the 60W light bulb which burns electricity of about $5.96 with the 13W 6400 high efficiency light bulb which consumes electricity of about $0.9 per month. This greatly has reduced the electricity bill[9].

Also the savings made on laser printer and ink printer cartridges greatly increased as well as the reduction of the CO2 emissions. Laser printer cartridges reduced from $22950 in the 2016 last half to $13200 in the 2017 first half. This saw the company reducing its costs by $ 9750. Ink printer cartridges cost reduced from $4700 in the 2016 last half to $ 1875 in the 2017 first half. This was a reduction of $ 2825. CO2 emissions reduced from 3750 in the 2016 last half to 2700 in the 2017 first half. This was a reduction of 1050. To summarize the report, CO2 and costs of the laser printer and ink printer cartridges has greatly reduced and this has seen the company improve its productivity[10].

During the year 2016, the company spent $ 4925 on the purchase of the white paper cases. For the past six months the company spent $ 5250 on the purchase of the white paper cases. This is a rapid increase in the cost of the white paper cases and must be reduced in all possible means.

The company’s existing Environmental Sustainability Policy does not state how to reduce paper and printing. The following are the suggestions on how paper usage can be reduced by the company:

• No excess printing of materials,
• Checking the accuracy of materials before printing to avoid wastage; wrong documents may be mistakeably printed. Printing the new accurate documents means extra papers have to be used and this leads to losses within the company.
• Checking the status of printers before staring the printing work. Printing activity may stop due to inefficiency of printers. Paper already under printing may be wasted.
• Recycling the damaged papers if possible.
• If possible the papers should be printed on both sides to minimize usage
• Employees to responsible over the printing process. Not wasting when it can be conserved policy.

Galpin, T., Whitttington, J. L., & Bell, G. (2015). Is your sustainability strategy sustainable? Creating a culture of sustainability. Corporate Governance, 15(1), 1-17.

White, P. (2013). Building a sustainability strategy into the business. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 386-394

[1] Galpin, T., Whitttington, J. L., & Bell, G. (2015). Is your sustainability strategy sustainable? Creating a culture of sustainability. Corporate Governance, 15(1), 1-17.

[2] Galpin, T., Whitttington, J. L., & Bell, G. (2015). Is your sustainability strategy sustainable? Creating a culture of sustainability. Corporate Governance, 15(1), 1-17.

[3] White, P. (2013). Building a sustainability strategy into the business. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 386-394.

[4] White, P. (2013). Building a sustainability strategy into the business. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 386-394.

[5] White, P. (2013). Building a sustainability strategy into the business. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 386-394.

[6] White, P. (2013). Building a sustainability strategy into the business. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 386-394.

[7] White, P. (2013). Building a sustainability strategy into the business. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 386-394.

[8] White, P. (2013). Building a sustainability strategy into the business. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 386-394.

[9] White, P. (2013). Building a sustainability strategy into the business. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 386-394.

[10] White, P. (2013). Building a sustainability strategy into the business. Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, 9(4), 386-394.

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