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In this Issue
- Note from Jean
- Featured Article
- Enviro Action Activities
- Links to Articles
Note from Jean
People often ask me how I got into what I do and where I got my passion. So here’s the answer.
I have always loved the natural world. My earliest memories are full of plants, animals and wonder about their beauty. As a young child every trip to the sea was spend crawling along the breakwaters watching crabs and all the other reef-life that lived there. Then in Australia, snorkelling over seagrass beds until I was piebald with a red back and white front.
We owe it to our grandchildren to leave them a world where they can grow up loving nature and building their dreams. I feel this very strongly.
My other passion developed in the late 1980s when I became involved in a family owned computer business and I discovered the amazing efficiencies and other benefits that simple and effective systems bring to a business. I implemented ISO 9001 (AS3902 then), Quality, for the business and then when ISO 14001 was released in 1996 I was able to combine my two passions and bring systems into my environmental consulting.
I have managed to successfully combine the two in a very pragmatic way to enable businesses to make money as well as helping the environment. That’s a Win-Win.
Featured Article
The Climate Change and Emission Trading Debate
In my opinion there is no doubt we need to make personal and business emission reductions and the sooner we do it the better. We are one of the 3 most energy guzzling societies on earth, per head of population. The other two are the USA and Canada. We cannot just wait until China and India catch up with us then all try to do something. It will be too late by then. The latest survey shows that well over 90% of Australians agree we must do something now even if it costs us.
The New Green Paper released last week seems to have upset both sides with the Greens saying it is not strong enough and the high energy users saying it goes too far. In the middle is good. I would have gone for a bit more restriction and I would have been talking much more about help for small business (there are 7.6 million) but I am glad I am not actually making the decisions. I do not think it will lead to a sharp drop in emissions but at least we are finally starting.
The scheme will raise prices in some areas but the combination of oil shock and drought are already doing this and the longer we leave it the more it will cost.
Some things that make absolute sense to me are
- Making sure that the high emitting industries like aluminium smelting do not just go offshore instead of working to become more efficient.
- We have the world’s largest and cleanest coal deposits and until energy reductions and alternative energy sources are in place we need to use this and must press on fast with clean coal technology and then export the technology.
- Australian coal is less polluting than Chinese coal so the Chinese are actually less polluting when we export to them. It seems pointless to put our people out of work to achieve a worse global outcome.
- Petrol is cushioned but I think we all have an incentive to use less but for many businesses and for commuters in the outer suburbs with no public transport infrastructure, the options are limited and won’t happen overnight.
- Agriculture is out but the farmers are harder hit by oil shock than many other industries. They need assistance to restructure to reduce their emissions. Methane is a major problem for them, especially with ruminant animals like cows and sheep as well as the emissions from the breakdown of effluent waste. There also a lot of nitrogen from fertilizers lost the atmosphere as NOX. This applies to city parks, gardens and households also.
- We also need to support our farmers as both a major export sector and to feed ourselves.
The National Emissions Trading Taskforce recommended that the threshold for assistance be set at 1200 tonnes of CO2 per millions dollars. The Government have rejected that and gone for 1500 tonnes, presumably to give themselves some negotiating room in the predicable frenzied lobbying.
The trade-exposed industries that emit more than 1500 tonnes of CO2 per million dollars of revenue would, according to the green paper, “...include (but would be unlikely to be limited to) aluminium smelting, the production of lime, the production of cement clinker, integrated steelmaking, alumina refining and silicon smelting, as well as some activities in the ceramics, basic chemicals, pulp and paper and other non-ferrous metals smelting industries”
It will be interesting to watch over the next few months and we all need to be looking for ways to make our own reductions.
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Worldwide 150 million people are predicted to be displaced by raising sea level within 50 years. What a political problem for our children to face.
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Enviro Action’s Activities
While the Chambers of Commerce and Institute of Management are saying that many large organisations have plans to ensure small businesses right along the supply chain had certain carbon standards in place as a requirement of doing business, there are many more that are not part of these supply chains and no one has actually said whether they will get any help with either cost or training.
This is an area where Enviro Action CAN HELP YOU. We have a range of training programs from coached online training though a variety of that can be bought for home study from as little as A$49 (+gst in Aust) and up to $660 for Do-It-Yourself full system training.
If you decide to upgrade from these off-the shelf or home study modules to coached training you get the full cost that you paid, discounted off the coached course.
We also offer “Reduce Your Carbon Footprint” workshops to address the awareness problems in your business and these can be held in your premises or with groups of other business and we have books that can be specifically tailored to your business and licensed for you to give to all employees. Contact Us for more information about this.
Here are the links to the latest articles on the Enviro Jean Blog
The Australian Institute of Management issued the warning that small and medium businesses will be “seriously disadvantaged” if they expect to avoid the impact of the Federal Government’s emissions trading scheme. after the release of the Government’s green paper on its carbon pollution reduction scheme.
All SMEs will soon feel the flow-on impact of the new scheme and their managers need to be ready for it,”.. read more..
Quite apart from lack of water there are human usage and waste management issues along the river.
There is the ongoing problem of “feral” boats and moorings where people have made very homemade houseboats which breach almost every regulation and squat in them in billabongs and quiet corners often with only long drop toilets. Read more..
One innovative South Australian man has put his heart and soul into developing an effective grey-water treatment system for boats on inland water over several years and it is finally coming together. Read more..
This is a major environmental problem. Acid sulphate soils are being exposed and salt is coming in from the Goolwa channel and increasing in the salt water lenses below the surface. There are currently just enough flows past Wellington to negate evaporation. It may be necessary to pump salt in to the river apparently to manage the acid sulphate soils but this will destroy the wonderful Ramsar wetlands and ecosystems which are very special and this will be in breach of our international agreements and internationally embarrassing. Read more...
Kindest regards
Jean Cannon
Helping business build effective management systems to save money and grow
It is easy to be green
Winner 2008 FarmBis Distance Learning/e-Learning Award and 2007 South Australian Seafood Industry Training Award in recognition of training excellence
For more information or suggestions about how I can serve you better,
please contact me on jean@enviroaction.com.au.
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