Green Routine

The construction industry is often criticised for neglecting environmental issues in favour of profit.

While the industry as a whole is actively pursuing the building of green building projects, the flip side is that not all companies who are accredited to Green Building Council membership nor all LEED-accredited professionals follow or encourage others to follow eco-friendly practices in their day-to-day tasks.

If we do not collectively change our thinking and how we operate, critics of the sector’s overall environmental performance may be proved right.

With World Expo 2020 and the FIFA 2022 World Cup on the horizon, and as the GCC construction industry prepares for another construction extravaganza, there could not be a better time for all stakeholders to start seriously practicing sustainability in everything that they do.

One such issue is heavy usage of paper in the construction industry.

It’s a fact that tonnes of paper and several thousands of printer cartridges  are being used by all stakeholders for communicating by means of circulating  multiple hard copies of drawings, reports, submittals, schedules, manuals,  purchase orders, invoices, delivery notes, timesheets, letters and faxes, without realising the adverse effect we leave on the environment.

Due to this uncontrolled use of paper, paper mills produce tonnes of extra supplies. However, such paper production and usage takes a toll on the beautiful planet we live in.

Paper is the third-largest industrial polluter of air, water and land, releasing well over 100m kg of toxic pollutants each year.

The worldwide pulp and paper industry is the fifth-largest consumer of electrical energy.

The paper industry also consumes more water in production per ton of product than any other industry. In addition, the carbon dioxide emitted during paper production is a greenhouse gas responsible for acid rain.

And wastewater from paper mills contains solids that affect ecological characteristics and results in the death of several living organisms in water.

Discarded paper is another significant issue. Even in recycling processes, sludge produced during de-inking is a major source of pollution.

We in the construction industry have a collective responsibility and should set an example for other industries to follow. This includes reducing or eliminating paper usage by going digital by means of electronic transmittal, communication, storage and data management.

Such an approach gives better control over projects and identifies potential issues early as electronic documents allow a company to capture cost and information on a real-time basis.

Also, it is a more secure way of doing business against loss of information and other fire-associated risks. Staffing and overheads also reduce considerably and the speed and efficiency of communications, document filing and retrieval all increase.

By digitising paper-based documents, the industry will gain from a multitude of benefits that not only help to create a better planet to live in but also increase our efficiency and create a healthier bottom line for business.

Reference:

http://www.constructionweekonline.com/

by CW Guest Columnist on Jan 5, 2014

Use Green Practices in All Aspects of Business

Integrate environmental thinking into all project management processes. But green thinking does not have to be reserved just for projects. It can be part of all of our business processes. The point of GreenPM is not that we make every decision in favor of the one that is most environmentally friendly. The point is that we start to take the environment into account during the decision-making process. The same can hold true for other business processes as well.     

 

Green Business Processes

It can be difficult to be green. Most green initiatives today are focused on equipment, supplies and other tangible products. There is not nearly so much emphasis yet on embedding green thinking into core business operating processes. These are the processes you use to run your business. Examples include your hiring process, performance review process, financial closeout process, vendor management processes, sales processes, etc. All companies have many business processes that are used to run the business. Few of these processes have been customized to support green thinking.

For example, let’s look at a simple fictional hiring process, and see where we can add green thinking. The process might look something like this.

v Understand skills and experience level for the position. (New - ask if there are any green requirements for the position).

v Create job description. (New - add a section in the job description for green requirements. This gets the manager thinking about it for all job descriptions.)

v Post position internally. (New - post electronically. Receive all resumes and feedback electronically. Don't print any documents.)

v Post position externally to internet job boards and on corporate website. (New - validate that the external job boards you use have sound environmental policies.)

v Evaluate candidates. (New - see if any candidates have green experience that matches any green requirements on the job description.)

 

v Perform initial interviews with qualified candidates. (New - perform initial interviews by phone, not in person. Save on costs as well as environmental impact.

 

 

v Pass qualified candidates to hiring manager (New - send electronically, not hard copy.)

v Conduct hiring manager interviews. (New - perform initial interviews by phone, not in person.)

v Bring in finalists for in-person interviews. (New - set up interviews for each candidate so they only have to travel one time.)

v Make hiring recommendation

v Make offer

 

There you have it. You have just embedded some simple ideas to make this a greener process. It is not burdensome. It just embeds green thinking into the process you were going to perform anyway. Take this idea and replicate it 100 billion times on simple business processes round the world. It would have a noticeable impact.