Environmental Performance - Our Approach
Manaaki Whenua is a strong proponent of sustainable development. Managing the direct impacts of our own activities is very important, and we focus on our major sustainability issues.
We started work on a formal Environmental Management System (EMS)
in 1995, and we were one of the first organisations in New Zealand to
be certified to the environmental standard ISO14001. Following that,
we decided our approach to managing our own environmental performance
should go beyond mere compliance to focus on our major sustainability
issues and to demonstrate our genuine commitment to the protecting the
environment in the course of our work.
The process of documenting our performance led us to begin an environmental accounting project assessing the environmental costs of our activities, including travel and electricity usage. Environmental accounting is now an integrated part of our EMS.
During the year, we replaced our Environmental Policy with a new Sustainability Policy. This takes a more holistic view of Manaaki Whenua’s activities, and goes beyond just targeting our own performance for improvement by reducing our own environmental impacts. The policy’s aim is also to ensure Manaaki Whenua is a leader in sustainability performance in New Zealand, and through our leadership we aim to influence and assist others to improve their performance.
Key environmental elements of our Sustainability Policy include:
- minimising and mitigating the adverse affects of our activities on the environment
- building the capability of staff to reduce environmental impacts at work and at home
- considering sustainability in all our decision-making, including working pro-actively with suppliers to increase our purchase of goods and services that are produced using sustainable practices.
We have initiated regular meetings of our site administrators to help share information and coordinate activities that affect the sustainability of our operations. Our larger sites have voluntary sustainability groups that, with other interested staff, generate ideas and initiatives to improve our performance — for example, the energy-efficient light-emitting diode (LED) corridor lighting at Lincoln.
 Lincoln opted for a zero waste Christmas BBQ, including compostable potato plates and wooden cutlery. The results — only half a bin bag of rubbish from 200 attendees! |
 Installing the LED corridor lighting at our Lincoln offices. This uses 1 watt per light, compared with 7 watts each for nightlights, and 120 watts for standard fluorescent fittings. |
 Back |
Next |