Sustainable Management Systems

Quality Assurance and Integrated Management Programmes
Sustainable Management Systems
Environmental Management Systems
Environmental Management Systems     NOSLaM. The NOSLaM project was developed in the early 1990s by a group of North Otago farmers who sought to develop a market advantage for products that complied with an EMS programme.   The programme was funded and supported by Otago Regional Council, MfE's Sustainable Management Fund (SMF), AGMARDT and the local community.   The programme and material has been prepared for NZ situations and could be useful for other groups.   The NOSLaM "Enviro-Ag" environmental certification for farmers programme is based on a workshop process that leads a farm business to develop an integrated management plan that is initially accredited by NOSLaM (or another group in another area), and subsequently can lead to ISO 14000 certification.   Eco-Profit - Towards Sustainable Agriculture. The development of Eco-Profit was sponsored by MAF Policy in 1996 with the objective of helping Southland farmers move towards sustainable farming - financial, social and environmental.   It was developed in consultation with farmers and used the "LEAF" programme for direction. The programme is a self-assessment tool for individual businesses, although it could be used in a workshop setting. It asks questions about farm practices, and gives a selection of responses each with different scores. Each question also asks the user to select the desired score, as well as present situation.   For each section, the user is asked to list areas for improvement, and the final pages encourage turning ideas into actions. "Eco-profit" gives comprehensive coverage (including financial, OSH, shelter & energy as well as land and stock management) in an easy-to-follow booklet. However, it is not intended for ongoing monitoring. The responses are subjective, not measured with notes and guidelines are often specific to Southland. Contact: MAF Policy, Dunedin.   Enviro-Mark Enviro-Mark is an generic international programme developed in Ireland.   Enviro-Mark NZ, is the NZ version of the programme and is managed by Landcare Research.   It is an Internet based five-step certification programme focused on health, safety and environmental management issues in organisations regardless of size or nature. The programme has a self-assessment and planning process, using an Enviro-Mark Planner, to enable users to evaluate their environmental management and health and safety performance against the Enviro-Mark NZ Standards.   Achievement of the standard is verified by external audit. The programme has 5 levels of attainment, each with respective requirements and levels.   Bronze: Compliance with the most commonly applicable environmental and health and safety legislation. Silver: Committment - Production of an appropriate environmental policy, built upon a determination of environmental impacts. Gold: Effective monitoring of targets and objectives to achieve continuous improvement. Platinum: Competence - Control of the organisations activities with operational documentation. Diamond: Pre-certification to ISO 14001 - Correction and improvement driven by a proven internal audit programme. Available Online: Website   Green Globe. Green Globe 21 is an EMS operating in New Zealand for the travel and tourism industry.   It currently has about 300 member companies mostly at the affiliate membership stage. The Green Globe 21 standard provides a framework to benchmark environmental and social performance, to achieve certification and to continuously improve.   Green Globe has three stages of membership: affiliate, benchmarked and certified.   Affiliate membership can be considered an introductory stage.   Then a company progresses by measuring environmental performance through benchmarking and making annual improvements.   The performance of the operation is assessed in ten key areas and when certified can use the Green Globe logo. Available Online: Website   Market Focused. Market Focused is an environmental management system for dairy farmers, which includes environment and animal welfare.   The development of Market Focused was initiated by the EQUAL group of farmers who had held a series of "think tanks" on developing such a system for the dairy industry.   This led to a stakeholder group, including Otago Regional Council and all the dairy companies, led by NZ Dairy Research Institute developing it over a 3-year period and launched it in September 2001.   The EQUAL group trialled and peer reviewed the programme during its development.   Following the launch there were a series of workshops throughout the country outlining the programme to dairy farmers. Market Focused is a template-based self-assessment tool for environmental quality management.   At this stage it is voluntary, and there is no audit process.   Available Online: Website   Merino Benchmarking Group The Merino Benchmarking and Monitoring Group was established by a group of progressive Merino sheep farmers who wished to establish a stronger approach to the monitoring and management of their properties. This project recognised that farmers have little incentive to record environmental data long term unless there are clear benefits.   The ability to increase profit was the strongest driver, even though the markets were not demanding such data at that point in time. Farmer involvement in previous environmentally focused farm projects had often been poor, and involvement in on-going activity were nearly non- existent.   This project set out to develop and evaluate a methodology for farmers to combine environmental monitoring and planning, which often benefits others, with farm production monitoring and planning, which benefits farmers directly. Each property developed a formal monitoring and decision-making process that was linked with a group-benchmarking scheme incorporating production, financial and environmental data. Contact: Claire Mulcock, Project Manager Ph: 03 365 9686   The Living Wine Group. The Living Wine Group is a network of four wineries in Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa who worked collectively on attaining a quality standard.   They have all achieved ISO 14001 accreditation and others have now also joined the group and obtained accreditation.   The participants were audited by JAS-ANZ (Joint Accreditation Systems of Australia and New Zealand). Available Online: Website