Environmental Management

Cleaning Up Your Business: 7 ‘deadly’ Wastes ALL Companies Must Combat

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One of the key aspects of driving your business forward is being able to identify and tackle waste.

Taiichi Ohno is credited with being the father of the Toyota Production System. He created a Lean Manufacturing framework based on the idea of preserving or increasing value with less work. Anything that doesn’t increase value for the customer is waste and every effort should be made to eliminate that waste.

Environmental waste is any unnecessary use of resources or a substance released into the air, water, or land that could harm human health or the environment. Environmental wastes are often a sign of inefficient production, and frequently indicate opportunities for saving costs and time.

Lean efforts can lead to significant environmental gains since environmental wastes are related to Ohno’s 7 wastes.

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TURNING WASTE INTO WORTH

Yet the latest draft of State of Waste Report and statistics from the CSIR show without a shadow of doubt that South Africa has a massive waste problem, which we are doing little to solve through our own initiates.

Quite shockingly, only 10% of the waste produced annually is recycled, leaving a staggering 54 million tons of general waste to be transported to landfill.

Much of the waste sent to landfill can be reused. These resources that we are throwing in the bin have an annual value of R17 billion according to the CSIR.

Waste management changes on the horizon

However, a raft of legislative and regulatory changes are looming on the horizon. These are set to radically alter the waste management landscape and are intended to move South Africa towards a more resource-efficient economy.

Various industries such as paper and packaging have already submitted Industry Waste Management Plans for approval by the Minister of Environmental Affairs, and retailers are busy phasing out single-use plastic bags to meet the 2020 deadline.

By the end of 2021, liquid waste and batteries will be banned from landfill sites. Targets for reducing organic waste disposal by 50% in 2023 have been set and include food and garden waste both produced in vast quantities by several industries.

Landfill sites are poised to increase gate fees as they become ever-more squeezed for space.

We have already seen the first phase of Carbon Tax implemented on 1 June 2019. Carbon Tax adopts the ‘polluter-pays principle’ to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even if you’re not liable to pay Carbon Tax, you should be able to benefit if you invest in products and processes with lower carbon footprints and make use of National Treasury’s Carbon Offset Scheme.

But what steps can you take to improve your processes and manage all these changes?

How can I change the way I do business?

We recommend that the best way to manage the threats posed by the impending legislation is to understand the potential risks that they pose to your business. This knowledge can then be used to identify opportunities to alleviate the risks, increase your business’s resilience and ideally realise competitive advantage.

In our experience, it’s quite possible to decrease or stop generating certain types of waste by changing processes. You can achieve this by implementing policies and procedures that refine or change the way you run your business and are based on the clearly-defined principles of Environmental Management.

One of the biggest benefits of implementing an Environmental Management System is the potential it offers to reduce waste.

Click here to find out How ISO 14001:2015 can help your organisation achieve Zero Waste to Landfill.

THE 7 'DEADLY' WASTES AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

In nearly every organisation, 95 percent or more of the activities and time in business processes do not add value. Below are the 7 wastes according to Taiichi Ohno and their environmental impacts:
Waste TypeEnvironmental Impact
1. Overproduction (the biggest waste)
  • More raw materials and energy consumed in the making of unnecessary products.
  • Extra products may require disposal.
  • Extra materials used in production result in more emissions, waste disposal, water usage etc.
2. Waiting
  • Potential material spoilage or component damage causing waste.
  • Wasted energy from heating, cooling and lighting during production downtime.
3 & 4. Transportation & Motion
  • More energy used for transportation.
  • Emissions from transport.
  • More packaging required to protect products during movement.
  • Damage and spills during transport.
5. Over-processing
  • More parts and raw materials consumed per unit of production.
  • Unnecessary processing increases energy and water use and emissions.
6. Defects
  • More raw materials and energy consumed in making defective products.
  • Defective products require recycling or disposal.
  • More space required for rework and repair, increasing energy use.
7. Inventory
  • More packaging to store work-in-process (WIP).
  • Waste from deterioration or damage to stored WIP.
  • More material need to replace damaged WIP.
  • More energy used.

Source: Shmula.com

HOW CAN I BENEFIT FROM ISO 14000:2015?

The ISO 14001 family and ISO 14000:2015 in particular can help you to measure and improve your environmental performance in a number of areas, including:

  • Resource management
  • Waste reduction and treatment
  • Recycling
  • Energy savings

Why should I care about the environment?

In short, because it’s what your customers want, and it can save you money. A lot of consumers care about the planet. A Unilever study reveals that:

  • 33% of consumers prefer buying goods and services from “socially or environmentally active” brands.
  • 21% of consumers prefer brands that use sustainable packaging.

Essentially, consumers want to know that their brand of choice is doing something to support the environment.

South Africa's waste management leaders

A handful of South Africa’s corporates lead the pack in waste management. One of these companies is Consol Glass. South Africa’s biggest glass manufacturer uses ISO 14001:2015 to manage a sizeable sustainability programme and has implemented clean production technologies to reduce energy consumption and their carbon footprint.

Since 2011, 80 South African companies became part of the National Cleaner Production Centre’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Project to implement cleaner production processes and use less energy, water and materials.

Together these companies have saved enough electricity to supply 120 000 middle-income South African families with power for a whole year!

A fantastic effort, don’t you agree? And the reason why more and more organisations are choosing to use ISO 14000:2015! This Environmental Management System encourages you to think about risks and opportunities and find innovative solutions to challenging problems that will ultimately provide you with a competitive edge and significant cost savings.

Want to find out more about the benefits of the fabulous ISO 14000 family of Environmental Standards?

Download our FREE Guide: ISO Environmental Management Systems 101: Basic Concepts & Principles Explained!

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WORK WITH RISK ZA

We have collective experience of over 30 years in training, consulting and implementing ISO related management solutions for organisations of all types and sizes in the Southern African region. Our expert team has helped dozens of businesses transform their organisations, from simply assessing their risks, to helping them find sustainable solutions to challenging environmental problems.

Does your team need guidance on ISO 14001:2015? Contact us on +27 (0) 31 569 5900 or email info@riskza.com, and let us help you through the process.

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Ethical Sourcing and Greening Your Supply Chain are Vital for Business Today

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Consumer goods companies are facing battles on all fronts. But increasingly they are having to defend themselves against social media ambush attacks which threaten to damage customer appeal for their products.

Sofia Ashraf is a young, bright copywriter for Ogilvy and Mather by day and a rapper by night. In 2015 she used her copywriting skills to change the lyrics of Nicki Minaj’s hit Anaconda from a celebration of women’s bottoms to the serious issues of Unilever’s alleged toxic waste dump and mercury poisoning in Kodaikanal, a city in southern India.

The trouble began in 1982 at a thermometer factory owned by the Anglo-Dutch company, where workers claim they were exposed to mercury poisoning. Unilever has settled the workers’ compensation claims but the team that produced “Kodaikanal Won’t” are not happy.

They released another video in 2018 “Kodaikanal Still Won’t” and promise to travel to the Netherlands and the UK to raise awareness among Dutch and British consumers about the company’s double standards if they refused to clean up the forest.​

Download our FREE GUIDE: ISO 14001:2015 – How to Improve Supplier Performance and Transparency to find out more.

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A STORY OF TRACEABILITY: COFFEE FARMERS, STARBUCKS AND ARTHUR KARULETWA

Arthur Karuletwa is a social entrepreneur who is passionate about family and the people of his country. He works with Rwandan coffee farmers who are some of the poorest people in the world.

Arthur Karuletwa is upbeat about the benefits that the global coffee market has had on improving the lives of Rwanda’s coffee bean growers:

“What I see all over the world, in the most unexpected places, are ordinary people willing to confront despair, hopelessness, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, dignity and the beauty of what makes us human – despite the seemingly crumbling surroundings.”

Rwanda is hosting the African Fine Coffees Conference and Exhibition this month (February 2019). It’s an annual event that takes place in Africa’s coffee producing countries, and it’s a chance for coffee producers to meet local and international buyers. In the last 10 years, Rwanda has worked hard at improving the quality of its coffee beans.

“I would rate Rwanda’s coffee as exceptional … we love Rwandan coffee,” said Craig Russell, of the Starbucks Corporation in the New York Times in July 2015. The American coffee house is the largest in the world and buys up a lot of Rwanda’s coffee beans.

Starbuck’s journey to source 100% ethically produced coffee … 15 years and counting!

Arthur Karuletwa is the Director of Global Coffee traceability at Starbucks and connects their supply chain from the farmer to the consumer. In 2018 Starbucks launched a pilot program working with farmers to develop real-time blockchain technology that follows the coffee beans’ supply chain journey. The brand hopes to forge a deeper sense of trust and loyalty with their consumers by increasing transparency and creating more emotional connections between them and the brand.

And that’s exactly what transparency is supposed to do. It should build trust in the public, in customers and in consumers that products are truthfully ethically sourced. But transparency can only be effective if communication is open, honest and accessible and company disclosure is ethical.

WHAT IS TRACEABILITY ALL ABOUT?

Sustainability programs help companies mitigate social and environmental risks throughout their supply chains. These programs are all about business resilience, transparency, ethics and competitiveness, and typically address issues such as compliance, workers’ safety and health, and the environment among many other concerns. Issues in the supply chain can be broadly split into two: human rights issues and the sourcing issues in supply.

Supply chains have been becoming increasingly more important over the past few years, as the effects of inadequate supply chain accountability are more and more visible in our marketplace.  Manufacturers are getting a clear picture that sourcing decisions are now much more visible than in the past… and much more risky.

Big industry movers like IBM, Procter and Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Johnson & Johnson and Unilever, among many others, are putting serious effort into engaging, collaborating and tracking supplier sustainability efforts. Central to each of these organisation’s concerns is how suppliers impact the large companies carbon footprint, water resource use and waste management.  

So, how can you ensure that your supply chain’s behaviour and performance do not harm the environment and your reputation?

READY TO GET STARTED?

Join us on our upcoming ISO 14001:2015 Introduction to EMS and Implementation or ISO 14001:2015 Internal & Supplier Auditor training courses to improve your knowledge about supplier management in Environmental Management Systems.  Contact Risk ZA on +27 (0) 31 569 5900, email info@riskza.com or using our contact form.

You can also download our FREE Guide: ISO 14001:2015 – How to Improve Supplier Performance and Transparency to find out more.

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ISO 14001:2015 – Internal Audits Drive Real Improvements

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Confronted with dramatic environmental challenges, plus a slew of regulatory requirements, many organisations have implemented environmental management systems (EMSs). An ISO 14001:2015 based EMS is the most popular, used to meet compliance obligations, monitor environmental policies and procedures, manage resources and control environmental harms.

ISO 14001:2015 is a systems-based management tool centering around the Plan-Do-Check-Act method, which drives continual improvement. The standard outlines in Clause 9.2 that internal audits at set intervals are necessary to support the theme of continual improvement underpinning the management system.

The purpose of internal audits is to ensure that the organisation’s environmental policies, objectives, compliance obligations and performance requirements are met and recorded, and that any corrective action is taken where necessary.

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Our FREE Downloadable Guide How To Conduct An Environmental Management Systems Audit explores more about the ISO 14001 Environmental Audit process. You can get hold of it by clicking the button below.

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What to expect from an ISO 14001:2015 audit

A key point to emphasise is that the intended outcomes of ISO 14001:2015 have not changed. The EMS must:

  • Protect the environment.
  • Meet compliance obligations.
  • Enhance environmental performance.

ISO 14001:2015 does, however, have a number of new requirements that will change the focus of an audit, which include:

  • Context of the organisation
  • Leadership
  • Planning
  • Support
  • Documentation
  • Operations
  • Performance evaluation
  • Improvement

ISO 14001:2015 - Clause 9: Performance evaluation

Performance evaluation is about measuring and evaluating an EMS to establish whether it meets the organisation’s planned outcomes. Evaluation provides valuable information for continual improvement by:

  • Evaluating the EMS’s effectiveness.
  • Establishing whether requirements of the standard are being met.
  • Verifying whether compliance obligations have been met.
  • Reviewing the EMs’s suitability, adequacy, effectiveness and efficiency.
  • Demonstrating that planning has been properly implemented.
  • Assessing the performance of processes against outcomes.
  • Determining the need or opportunities for improvement.

Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation

Monitoring in the sense of ISO 14001 means checking, reviewing, inspecting and observing  planned activities to ensure that they are occurring as intended. So, for example, if an operational control states that water quality will be inspected twice weekly, then this is a monitoring process. Monitoring and measurement :

  • Evaluates environmental performance;
  • Analyses root causes of problems;
  • Assesses compliance with compliance obligations;
  • Identifies areas for corrective action;
  • Improves performance and efficiency.

The Internal audit programme

Unlike an audit schedule or audit plan, an audit programme includes the full life-cycle of auditing. From the very decision to use audit as a tool through planning and initiating the audit, performing, reporting and follow-up, to improvement of the entire programme and its constituent parts.

All parts of the EMS should be audited at minimum yearly, this is typically dealt with in an annual audit schedule. The entire EMS can be audited at once or in parts for more frequent audits. To establish the frequency of EMS audits, consider:

  • The nature of your operations;
  • Risks and opportunities;
  • Statutory and regulatory requirements and compliance obligations;
  • Significant environmental aspects / impacts;
  • Results of your monitoring programme;
  • Results of previous audits.

There are two principle considerations when auditing:

Compliance/conformance audits – ensure that management arrangements, like procedures, are being followed in order to comply with the requirements of ISO 14001.

Performance Audits –  ensure that the outputs of the management arrangements are achieving their intended outcomes. For example, the results of engineering controls applied to mitigate air pollution are achieving the legal limits.

ISO 14001 demands an approach that combines both a compliance/conformance and a performance approach to auditing.

Who should perform an environmental audit?

ISO 19011:2018 – Guidelines for auditing management systems – contains information on how to choose an Environmental Auditor. Environmental Auditors should have personal attributes, such as ethics, open-mindedness, perceptiveness and tact. They should understand audit principles, procedures and techniques, and have gained experience by conducting audits. They should know the subject matter they are auditing against and how this applies to different organisations.

Audit Team Leaders should be able to plan and resource effectively, have good communication and leadership skills. Environmental Auditors should complete training and have attained an appropriate level of education. When seeking an External Auditor consider the skills outlined here.

Auditor qualifications

All auditors need to receive initial and ongoing training. EMS auditors should be trained in auditing techniques and management system concepts, environmental regulations, and facility operations. For performance audits, an auditor needs to have a good understanding of the standard and the EMS, and a broad understanding of environmental issues. Auditors should be reasonably independent of the area or activity that is being audited and can definitely not audit their own work.

An effective audit programme should:

  • Develop audit procedures and protocols.
  • Establish an appropriate audit frequency.
  • Train auditors.  
  • Maintain audit records.
  • Link audit results to the corrective action system.

NEW! ISO 19011:2018: Guidelines for auditing management systems

Auditors are the ears and eyes of top management because they can provide an independent appraisal of an organisation’s operations and activities. In addition, a skillful auditor will add value to a management system by finding opportunities for improvement. It’s important to note that ISO 19011:2018 has significantly raises the bar on what constitutes essential competencies that management-systems auditors need to possess or acquire.

Revisions to ISO 9001:2015 (QMS), ISO 14001:2015 (EMS), and ISO 45001:2018 (OH&S) are all based on Annex SL of ISO Directive 1, the ISO High Level Structure. Consequently, ISO 19011 includes an annex to deal with how to audit organisational context, leadership and commitment, compliance and the supply chain, amongst others. The new standard will help with the effective audit of these management systems and facilitate a uniform approach to the auditing process where multiple systems are in place.

DOWNLOAD FREE GUIDE

Our FREE Downloadable Guide How To Conduct An Environmental Management Systems Audit explores more about the ISO 14001 Environmental Audit process. You can get hold of it by clicking the button below.

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For more information or guidance on which ISO standard(s) and services would best suit the needs of your organisation, please email Risk ZA at info@riskza.com or contact us on 0861 Risk ZA / +27 (0) 31 569 5900.

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