Practical Assessment Of Company Resources And Practices

Water Regulation and Management

Instruction for assessment

• Part A requires you to identify and analyse legal requirements and initiatives that relate to your industry and workplace. You are required to measure current resource usage, analyse purchasing strategies and current work practices in order to identify opportunities for improvement of resource usage and set new targets.
• Part B requires  you to implement resource efficiency improvement plans by using techniques and tools to assist in achieving efficiency targets and monitor the performance of these.
• Each answer and question should have their reference underneath
• 800-1000 words

1. Legislation and sources of information for resources and initiatives
2. Identify the environmental regulations which apply in your local government area relevant to your workplace activities and provide details what is covered by these regulations and by-laws.
3. No person without prior notice from the environment authorities shall construct, reconstruct, extend, alter, remove or place any structure whether in part or full in or under the river, lake or wetland.

This regulation is set to avoid interference with river course as well as protecting water bodies from invasion. It focuses on human interference with natural environment. If humans are allowed to invade water resources, there is a high probability that the depletion rate will rise. To protect the water bodies in long run, intrusion must be restricted.

Since the activities in the company are highly dependent on water, this regulation will be of significance. Source of water for the company will not be affected if the regulation is strictly adhered to.

1. No person shall, without approval from government authorities, tunnel, excavate, disturb or drill the lake, river or wetland.

This by-law is set to maintain the natural position and course of the river, lake or wetland. Tunnelling, excavating, disturbing and drilling in a waterbody results to an increase or decrease of holding capacity of sections of the water source. This can result to flooding in instances where the holding capacity is reduced and reduction in water levels in cases where the holding capacity is increased.

• No person, without approval from environment authorities shall deposit or channel any substance in a lake, river or wetland in, on or under its bed, if the substance will have adverse effect on the environment.

Industries produce harmful wastes which requires proper treatment before being released to the environment and river bodies or lakes. This regulation is essential in ensuring that all wastes allowed into water bodies are of required standards which cannot harm aquatic habitat as well as the surrounding environment.

1. The Environment Authority shall, with consultation with other lead agencies, identify potential threats to biodiversity and come up with appropriate measures to arrest or cancel their effects.

Frequent monitoring of changes in the environment is beneficial in tracking the performance its constituents. When the changes in the environment has a likely effect of interfering with biological composition, the possible outcome of the changes requires investigation. If the changes are detrimental to survival of important organisms, the authority shall device appropriate measures to curb the situation.

1. Every industry and any other activity releasing chemicals into the atmosphere must eliminate substances that result to depletion of stratospheric ozone layer.

The atmosphere is an important part of human life and must be protected at all costs. Smoke from industries contain harmful chemicals which when released to the atmosphere without regulating the chemical content will result to depletion of ozone layer. All industries are required to acquire licence from relevant authorities which shows adherence to the set levels of gaseous chemical content of smoke ((Lee, 2009).

1. Identify any resources and initiatives which are in place or available in your state to help business to reduce their waste and use resources more efficiently.
2. Use of electronic devices for storage and going paperless.

Instead of using printed papers to store information, computer and other electronic devices can be utilised. This will minimise paper wastes. To add onto that, electronics can store large volumes of data and information while occupying less space. Thus, electronic storage of data is more efficient as compared to using printed data (Schliephake, Stevens and Clay, 2009).

1. Placing paper recycle bin close to the work station of employees.

Making the recycle bin in a visible place ensures that the employees do not use extra effort to reach the trash bin. This makes it easy to collect waste papers and take them for recycling.

• Provide filtered water.

By installing filtered water tap in the offices, employees can use glasses to drink water. This will eliminate bottled water within the work space. This means that wastes from bottles will be minimised hence reducing the possibility of polluting the environment.

1. Provide employees with reusable bottles.

As part of improving employer to employee relation, the company can award each employee with a reusable water bottle with the company logo printed on it. Even though a small cost will be spent on this, the impacts will be enormous. It will improve and better the relationship between the employees and their employer as well as serve as an advertisement technique when they move outside in public with the bottles.

1. Smart purchasing.

When budgeting for the business, it is necessary to put into consideration the lifetime and ability of reusing and recycling the goods purchased. Goods which will last for a relatively long period of time should be given priority over those which don’t last for long. Those goods which can be reused and recycled should be top of the list too.

1. Using e-payments.

Using online or electronic payment methods reduces the reliance on paper work during payments. This in turn increases efficiency since movements and queues are avoided.

1. List 1 initiative that is relevant to your sector within the tourism, hospitality and events industry and list all resources which are available through these initiative(s). outline how these would be used.

Improving tourism, hospitality and events for community well-being.

The thoughts supporting network prosperity rose up out of a developing disappointment with a straightforward concentrate on monetary proportions of network development and advancement. Following the thoughts laid out by Nobel Prize victor A. Sen, and numerous others, there has been a deliberate endeavor in scholastic circles furthermore, by a few governments to give these more comprehensive examinations of the personal satisfaction and prosperity in a district or explicit zone.

It tends to be contended that the future validity and intensity of the travel industry as seen in government circles is progressively being identified with more than monetary execution and is starting to imagine these sorts of capital or wide asset based ways to deal with network prosperity. It is these issues and the explicit measures to asses them which are probably going to wind up the new Key Performance Themes and Indicators for the individuals who oversee the travel industry and occasions (Bohdanowicz and Zientara, 2009).

1. Measuring current consumption and identifying existing procedures of work practices and purchasing:

Conduct a practical assessment of your organisation’s resources and practices. You may use the forms attached below to collect your data or any software available to you (for example you may create a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel).

For this purpose you need to complete the following activities;

1. Create a table or list and enter:

All equipment and appliances used in one specific department ( for example Kitchen, F&B etc.), and measure the consumption of electricity as listed on the appliances labels.

1. Measure the flow rate for water of various taps using the formula “Flow rate=Volume/Time(L/min)”
2. Inspect the provisions for recycling.
3. Determine the intervals of waste collection and determine the size of the cubicle(s) used.
4. Determine the energy consumption ratings, use and settings of air conditioners and heaters where applicable and document the potential KWH usage for these units.
5. Determine the resources required for any plants, landscaping or outside areas relevant.
6. List the purchasing strategies which are currently in place including environmentally sustainable approaches; carbon foot print considerations ( for example use local supplies from growers etc.)
7. Identify any breaches for environmental practices you have encountered in audited area during your project and outline the issues.

1. Setting efficiency targets

1. Set your targets in a table or spreadsheet based on your findings of the analysis.

Templates

Water Meter                                                                                                                 Meter reading

Quarterly	Water use KL/period	Aver daily Use	Cost of water per KL	Sewage Disposal Cost	Connection Fees	Target	Variance
Period
Jan – March	3000	100	12	450	325	1000	1267561.5
April-June	4500	1500	12	475	432	997	2692511.87
July-Sep	3500	117	14	423	322	876	1743324.67
Oct-Dec	4000	133	11	433	427	1256	2286779.47

Water Appliances (determine usage)

Location	item	Type	Water flow	Amount/type
(L/min)
1	Bath tub	Facet	7	7
2	Kitchen tap	Facet	8	8
3	Basin	Facet	6	6

Electricity                                                                                                          Meter 1 current reading:

                                                                                                                            Meter 2 current reading:

                                                                                                                            Meter 3 current reading:

                                                                                                                           Meter 4 Current reading:

Month	Invoice#	Amount$	Peak	Off Peak	Total	Total for Month	Target	Variance
Jan	1	13000	14000	12000	26000	39000	300	108560000
Feb	2	15000	16500	13500	30000	45000	259	144900000
Mar	3	14500	15000	14000	29000	43500	332	134660000
April	4	13750	14700	12800	27500	41250	299	121361000

Gas                            Current reading:

Month	Invoice #	Amount $	Total	Total for month
Jan	1	12347	23451	35798
Feb	2	17563	34752	52315
Mar	3	14352	45242	59594
April	4	15763	32345	48108

Waste

1. Review current waste contractual arrangement                                                                                                        (Waste Wise Hotels, 2007)

Material	Type of container and amount	Collection frequency (normal)	Collection frequency (busy periods)	Average annual cost	Contractor details
Paper	547	2	2	449	Outsource
Oil	234	2	2	400	Outsource
veges	566	2	2	566	Outsource

1. Over 1 period conduct a visual waste auditof all rubbish bins.

• Observe what is being thrown away
• Look for contamination (materials disposed of wrongly)
• Professional companies can undertake waste audits on a fee-for-service basis

Date/time	location	Bin size	Plastic Bottles	Glass Bottles (%)	Cans (%)	Card (%)	Paper	Milk Cartons (%)	Organic	Other (Broken Glass)
(%)	(%)	(%)
30-03-2018	1	200	30	2	15	3	32	2	15	1
30-03-2018	2	200	23	6	13	4	33	3	17.5	0.5
30-03-2018	3	200	25	5	10	5	20	4	20	1
30-03-2018	4	200	33	7	5	1	14	3	32	5

Calculate the daily total amount of rubbish from each department ‘Area’   

Bin size	Plastic bottles(%)	Glass bottles (%)	Cans (%)	Card (%)	Paper (%)	Milk Cartons (%)	Organic (%)	Other (%) – broken glass
2.5	33	3	1	10	19	3	25	2
2.5	25	5	4	9	17	5	31	4
Total	29	4	2.5	9.5	18	4	28	3

1. Work out your collection requirements

• Total the volumes of each type of waste per day
• Some items can be combined such as glass, metal, plastic, paper and milk cartons- referred to as ‘co-mingled’ waste.( but , no food scraps, polystyrene or plastic bags)
• Calculate the required bin size and frequency of collection – e.g. if your property produced 242.5 litres of ‘co-mingled waste’ per week then 1 x 250 litre bin should be sufficient with a once a week collection frequency.

Amount of wastes collected = 323 litres

Frequency of collection = 2

Bin size required =

Thus, use a 200 litre capacity bin

1. Review the packaging from your supplies

• Attempt to reduce or eliminate waste at the source

Supplier	Packaging used on delivery	Waste disposal issues	Opportunity for avoidance	Benefits
Bob’s fruits and vegetables	Waxed carboard boxes	Organic wastes accumulation	construct biogas system	Production of electricity
Oman Printing papers	Carton boxes	Accumulation of waste papers after printing	Having recycling bin in offices	reuse of the wastes
Excel water distributors	Plastic bags	Improper disposal of Plastic bottles	Recycling the bottles	Reducing cost of bying new bottles

References 

Bohdanowicz, P. and Zientara, P., 2009. Hotel companies’ contribution to improving the quality of life of local communities and the well-being of their employees. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 9(2), pp.147-158.

Lee, K.H., 2009. Why and how to adopt green management into business organizations? The case study of Korean SMEs in manufacturing industry. Management Decision, 47(7), pp.1101-1121.

Schliephake, K., Stevens, G. and Clay, S., 2009. Making resources work more efficiently–the importance of supply chain partnerships. Journal of Cleaner Production, 17(14), pp.1257-1263.