Sustainability Policy for SCEI College - Case Study Example

Sustainability Policy for SCEI College Name: University Affiliation: Policy Statement SCEI College aims to promote sustainability by reducing its energy consumption, promoting recycling of paper, and optimizing on space conservation. Principals and Policies During the implementation of sustainability policies, SCEI must comply with social, environmental and economic sustainability regulations. Social sustainability requires all the systems to focus on promoting mutually valuable associations with the stakeholders. It covers areas that relate to equal opportunity, workplace relations, ethical governance and trade practices. Environmental sustainability requires the policies to reduce precarious material, waste and emissions on the physical environment. Economic viability links the policies to regulations that cover ASX requirements, creditworthiness, requirements of the Australian Taxation Office, and ethical governance. Other regulations that the college may require to comply with include the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act of the year 2006 and the National Pollutant Inventory recording requirements. The college must endeavor to promote awareness among the staff and students to ensure that they support the best policies. Part 1 Scope The sustainability policy aims at promoting energy consumption, recovering the congested spaces, improving the quality of air and promoting paper recycling procedures. Sources of Information The SCEI College needs information to determine the best policies and procedures that will ensure that their operations comply with legislative requirements. The different sources of information could consist of: 1. College specifications like policy and procedure documentation 2. Regulatory bodies such as government organizations and industrial institutions. 3. Deliberations and guidance from pertinent stakeholders 4. Records of resource consumption that shows the consumption trend and current standards. For example, SCEI College can collect information from the printers such as the amount of time they remain idle and the state of the components. Other information sources that might be valid for this case are: 1. Web sites related to environment, and climate change such as http://www.resource.nsw.gov.au 2. Web sites that offer guidance on procuring recycled office paper such as http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/paper/recycled/ Only current information will be appropriate to develop sustainable policies and procedures. For the case of SCEI College, stakeholders will play a significant role in providing the information necessary to develop the sustainability policies and procedures. Interested parties in a college are the people, groups or any organized entities that influence its daily operations. For the institution under consideration, the stakeholders include students, the administrators, staff members, parents as well as the local community. Stakeholder The key stakeholders in the SCEI College are the students, teachers, subordinate staff, parents, suppliers and the neighboring society. Strategies to include the policy and procedure to encourage Efficient Use of Resources Energy Consumption SCEI College must reduce the number of printers, change the power mode of all the computers, and shut down all the computers when not in use. Paper Recycling SCEI College should restrict the current methods of printing and encourage the use of recycled paper, back-to-back printing and use of emails for internal communication instead of written notifications. It should also promote the use of recycled paper. Space Conservation SCEI College should restrict the use of personal vehicles inside the college compound and supports other modes of transportation like public transport, walking, riding and car sharing. It should develop a workable college travel plan that will encourage sustainable ways of transportation. Recommendation for Policy and Procedures Before implementing policies, there is need to make some trade-offs to ascertain that the plans are worth applying. For the college to settle for a particular system, it has to make a decision based on the balance of some specific policy options. The standard criteria used to make the trade-offs includes: cost, effectiveness, ease of implementation as well as the time of application (Jansson, 2013, p. 204). The following are the recommendations: 1. Likely effectiveness: Some policies may be cheaper upon implementation but may never work at all. Therefore, to carefully examine the proposed policies to ensure that they will be very efficient upon implementation. 2. Timeframe: During the consideration of ideas and plans, it is wise to look for the ideas that are quick to implement. In most cases, such plans will include ideas that will immediately impact the sustainability of the organization. 3. Cost: It is wise to consider the amount of money that the implementation of the strategy will consume. The cost of execution should reflect the effectiveness of the approach. For example, it is not wise to implement a policy that will cost a lot of money while providing little progress to the current situation. Benchmarking Indicators of best Practices Printing department such as the recycled paper policy, which requires all departments to use recycled paper and double-sided copies as the primary method for all written documents. It also entails a reduction in the number of fliers by sharing and posting them on centrally placed notice boards. Use of electronic mails for internal communication, and using half-sheets paper for all brief internal communications have reduced the amount of the journal used by 10% and energy consumed by 2% (Cornell, 2016). Computer and related equipment policies help to optimize energy conservation. The entire workgroup of an institution must use power management settings on their computers. The IT group will assist the members in changing their computer configuration. All copiers and printers in either have a sleeping mode or power saving mode activated. The institution will reduce the number of desk-side computers by 75% and instead installs shared units. The IT group also ensures that all computers remain shut down at night or when they are not working with the aim of reducing the energy consumed by 50%. The sustainable means of college transportation policy will help to cut down the carbon emissions. The most successful on-campus actions to reduce the environmental impact from transportation include plans that discourage use of automobile while encouraging other means of transport such as carpooling, biking, aboding buses and walking. The result will be an improved reduced environmental degradation caused by unnecessary vehicle usage, keeping the campus free of exhaust fumes, reduction of congestion and energy waste and emancipation of space for expansion of facilities. Under the policy, students will access free bus passes. Sustainable shuttling alternatives will result in a 15% reduction of carbon emission (Cornell, 2016). Methods of Implementation of the Policies The first step towards implementation of the policies is to identify the alleged gains and losses that may result from the policies. The second phase includes the creation of awareness among the students and the members of staff. Implementation of an effective communication process with the other stakeholders when making necessary changes to the policies to create a positive awareness among them. ICT department will create corporate emails for students and members of staff, which will enable effective communication among all the stakeholders, Other useful means of communication across the college is through centralized notice board where people can access relevant information. The third step will include the use of proactive action, where the stakeholders should accept the changes and use the resources wisely. Proactive measures will also help to facilitate modification of the organizational structure to enhance communication with all stakeholders. Assigning different roles to interested parties in the process of change will make them appreciate the new policies and procedures. According to Morse, Buss, & Kingdom (2014, p. 174), proactive actions goes hand in hand with effective internal and external communication to promote a successful organizational change. Finally, there will be some members from every department who will collect the necessary data and report to an executive officer. After processing the data, it will be easy to track the performance of each department regarding policy implementation. Therefore, it will become easy to track the continuous improvement in the sustainability process. Part 2 Impact Implementation of the Sustainability policies will have positive and negatives effects on SCEI College. The college will benefit by reducing the energy consumed in the printing process and other operations that require the use of computers by 60%. Reduction of the number of vehicles in the institution will free more space that will be useful in expanding the structures. After reducing the amount of paper used and energy consumed, SCEI will save more financial resources that can help to expand its operations. The stakeholders will also enjoy improved environmental conditions such as clean air and efficient service delivery. On the contrary, some stakeholders may have to forego their luxuries like the use of private transport and to operate under some more strict procedures, where they must ensure that they switch off computers anytime they are not using them. Workers will also have to forego the side desk printers and do their printing from a central point. Role of the Stakeholders The primary role of the stakeholders is to implement and promote the policies for sustainability. The success of implementing these policies will depend on the ability of the stakeholders to collaborate internally and engage the relevant actions to support the policies. Strategies for Monitoring Continuous Improvement in Sustainability Practices Continuous improvement is an obligation for all the Registered Training Organizations and is essential in maintaining quality in service delivery. Continuous improvement is also important in the sustainability field because it allows monitoring and improving all the operations. The following strategies will be very helpful to monitor continuous improvement: 1. Put in place effective instruments to collect quality indicators, feedback, evaluations as well as suggestions from all the stakeholders. This information will be necessary to monitor the progress of the institution. 2. To strictly follow the policies and practices to ensure that they respond to the current needs of the organization and the stakeholders. 3. To provide suitable training of the support team. The support team should have sound knowledge of data analysis. Therefore, the analysis of the data collected should reflect the current state of affairs at any particular time and consequently the best action to take. Part 5 Outcomes Indicators Quantity Indicator Quality Indicator Total amount of energy used 66% 13% Amount of greenhouse gas generated 69% 16% Total amount of waste reused 50% 25% Space saved 10% 9% Amount saved 30% 15% Feedback After implementing the policies, the results were impressive. After reducing the numbers of printers and using the power saving options for the computers, there was a reduction of energy used by 34%. The prohibition of vehicles in the college compound reclaimed 10% of the compound. However, quality indicators based on the response of the stakeholders was only 3%. The result clearly showed that many people were no happy with the prohibition of the private cars in the compound. The college was able to cut the consumption of paper by half after using the paper recycling methods and using back to back printing. However, the amount of energy reduced far much below the anticipated level. Methods of Reviewing Success of Sustainability There was a continuous collection of data from electricity bills; the paper purchased and paper recycled. All stakeholders filled appraisal as well as questionnaires that helped to collect the necessary information. Members of the top management also conducted surveys and received the relevant information. Analysis of the data revealed the trend of the sustainability process. Monitoring of the Records Methods of data analysis will be very useful in processing the data collected. The result will help to show the progress of the firm at all times and facilitate the process of continual improvement. For example, the results from the energy consumed after the implementation of the policies clearly show that the college has to turn into renewables to supply its energy needs. Recommendations From the above analysis, the college failed to meet the target in the reduction of the energy consumed. Therefore, the power consumption policies need a change to incorporate use of energy-saving machines and renewable sources of energy. Most of the workers were not happy the prohibition of private cars in the school compound. Therefore, there is need to improve the means of transport and make them more efficient. References Read More