Environmentally Sustainable Work Practices in Swimburne University

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Swimburne University of technology is a public institution founded by George Swimburne with a passion and vision of seeing Eastern suburbs have technical college (Watson 2010, p.24).

The university is under industry based learning located in Melbourne, Australia. The technical college was established on 8^th July 1908 with eighty young boys and men who enrolled for their technical classes in 1909.

The subjects that were offered then included, gas fitting, plumbing, and carpentry(Choi 2011, p.112). The institution was established to offer vocational, postgraduate, research qualifications, and undergraduate courses.

Swimburne is a global university that delivers vocational training to around 16,000 students most of which complete their training in job market and for those who take their studies in the campus, real work projects are integrated with work based learning or practical placement (Watson 2010, p.25).

Environmental management practices

It is important that all relevant stakeholders are included in environmental management practices, anyone that has to change their behavior as a result of this strategy and people that may be affected by environmentally management strategies.

Environmental management strategies are also developed for water catchment areas like minor water courses and urban storm water drains that flow to system of streams.

Keeping electricity reliable, affordable, and sustainable in highly competitive and deregulated national market, when pressure is also building to make for new sources of green electricity that are not yet economic

Resource Efficiency Areas

Through research qualifications, Swimburne University aims at transforming the way people utilize land, mineral, water, and energy resources by promoting better understanding of environmental and human systems and new technology use (Choi 2011, p.113).

The main area of resource efficiency is climate change and variability whereby through research the university focuses at increasing people understanding of the negative effects of climate variability and changes at the regional level.

The climate patterns in Australia are highly variable and further changes can have adverse effects on the environment.

The university aims at creating awareness about the benefits of adapting to different climatic changes and understanding the effects of climate change.

The institution also aims at transforming existing industries by improving resources for technology based industry that helps in reducing environmental impacts on sea and land and therefore increase the national income (Swift 2011, p.26).

For example, the mineral industry remains the most competitive industry in Australia and therefore Swimburne University aims at improving the methods of extracting minerals without environmental interference (Mitchell 2012, p.57).

Through research, the university is trying to identify causes and possible solutions to dreadful land condition by using several disciplinary approaches to control land surfaces.

The landscape in Australia is fragile, soil acidity is high, and nutrients levels are very low, an issue that continues to pose a great challenge for environment and agriculture.

Another priority was to improve water productivity and provide sustainable ways of consuming water in agricultural farms and the surrounding by providing means of increasing ground water and rivers protection and the recycling of industrial and urban waste waters.

This is because Australia is among the driest continents in the world and depends upon freshwater supply for social and economic development (Zhang, Shen, Tam & Lee 2012, p.315)

The institution uses its resources in capturing and reducing emissions in transport and generation of energy.

Through Swimburne University, The government of Australia is in a good position to produce efficient solutions that capture and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and through the government commitment, emissions targets must be met (Choi 2011, p.115).

Urban planning and development is another key priority because the government aims at building the capacity for the council staff to implement the ESD policy effectively across the communities and council projects is the priority.

Natural resources have the potential to create more employment opportunities to the people of Australia and generate more wealth in future. There are significant several challenges faced by the people

Appropriate Targets

By developing environmental sustainability through training the decision makers and the next generation of leaders on development of sustainability initiatives that covers education agenda, research, and institutional practices.

Swimburne also targets at implementing environmental practices that aims at reducing use of natural resource and minimizing pollution (Watson 2010, p.27).

Developing environmental education initiatives like sustainability courses and national centre for sustainability that supports targets of a national management in sustaining education.

Swimburne also targets on environmental research that focus on expertise and sustainability interests that are diverse and spread over all faculties like management of urban growth and intensification.

Key Stakeholders

University lecturers, students and employers are the key stakeholder groups in the long established industry based learning (IBL) programs of Swimburne University (Streimikiene 2012, p.2175).

Four gaps existed between the three key stakeholder groups that had distinct comparisons between the stakeholder perceptions and expectations.

There was a means-end gap between the students and the employers, a gap in recognizing the university role in partnership, a gap in student in student perceptions of the other stakeholder’s abilities of motivation, and a gap in the university service expectation (Mitchell 2012, p.58).

The overall relationship is that, Due to long experience of the university mentors they understand the expectation of both employers and students. Though, the university role in the partnership expectation required immediate attention.

Successful results can be achieved partnering with all stakeholders in the program and integrating learning programs at national at local level.

National centre for sustainability (NCS) is among the key stakeholders for Swimburne University and is committed to excellence in delivery of programs, research, and provides the industry with medium for consultation with other key stakeholders (Choi 2011, p.116).

The national centre for sustainability works towards developing and exploring opportunities that promote sustainable practices through specialized practices ad link with other industries that uphold sustainable practices.

Stakeholder Consultation Process

Interactive consultation is very important when communicating with key stakeholders in an organization or large institution like Swimburne University. The basic consultation processes include the following;

Planning Ahead

This is the first stage in stakeholder consultation process; the management should think very critically who needs to be consulted, for what reason, and over what topics (Watson 2010, p.27).

For instance in the Swimburne university, the employer should first think before consultation the student or the academic mentors and internalize issues to consult before making that step critical step.

This steps saves time for consultation, helps keep expectations in time, and reduces time.

Consulting Using Basic Principles of Good Practice

Techniques, approaches, timetables, and methods must be applied for the different kinds of stakeholders that are being consulted (Flamos & Begg 2010, p.22).

Given that the nature of consultation the process will specific to the context. An effective consultation process must be made in good time to create a positive effect on the project, it should be informed, target the most effected persons, should be meaningful, and reported back.

Incorporate Feedback

A promise must be made during consultation process that, the views of different stakeholders will be considered during the decision making process.

Based on different stakeholders input, it is important for the employer in the university to make clear recommendations to the people about what aspects of the project are still pending (Streimikiene 2012, p.2175).

The main advantage is that it helps in making modifications from the stakeholder feedback which the university contributes towards local development.

Documenting the Results and the Process of Consultation

This is significant in managing the engagement process of the stakeholder. The benefits of this stage include; satisfaction of the due diligence questions of equity partners and helps in demonstrating the views of affected persons.

Basis for reporting back to stakeholders on how their issues have solved is provided in such documentation. This process helps in asking questions like, where and when did the meeting take place, what was the topic of discussion, with whom, and the results.

Reporting Feedback

This is the last step in the consultation process. It is very important to report feedback to the stakeholders with whom one has consulted. Many companies have expressed deep concern that researchers do not report back after collecting information.

Employers, students, and academic mentors should ensure that the gap between them is solved through proper and effective consultation by reporting back after consultation.

Continuous Improvement Strategy

Swimburne University of technology should focus on use of metrics, balanced scorecard approach, and key performance indicators as the main methods of continuous improvement and sustaining strategic planning.

Continuous improvement should be applied in areas of staff satisfaction and enrollment faculty, the academic performance of the student, and financial pliability.

To enhance institution improved performance and take corrective action, the performance is reviewed frequently in order to meet and hopefully exceed the stakeholder’s expectations, observing environmental changes and monitoring performance which is relative to changing expectations and continuous improvement is very important (Choi 2011, p.114).

Developed of strategies is essential in ensuring that team members are supported and encouraged to participate in decision making process and assume exercise and responsibility initiatives are inconsistent.

Establish systems to ensure that the continuous improvement process of the organization is communicated to all stakeholders and develop effective coaching and mentoring process to ensure that teams and individuals are in a position to support and implement the continuous improvement of the organization.

Resources

The key to Success in continuous improvement is facilitated by appropriate resourcing of all areas and departments that are focused and involved in delivery of tangible improvement (Swift 2011, p.25).

Resourcing includes; a dedicated continuous improvement team for strategy development and provide support to business and operations management team, a dedicated continuous improvement leaders or process engineers to carry out and lead most of the improvement activities with guidance from plant and process staff and in conjunction with the advice (Genaidy, Sequeira, Tolaymat, Kohler, Wallace & Rinder 2010, p.2173).

Financial resources are required for implementing new technology, upgrading plant, supporting personnel, and staff training.

Measuring Success in Continuous Improvement

Six sigma and use of balanced score card is appropriate method for measuring in Swimburne university (Streimikiene 2012, p.2173) The balanced score card provides a very clear prescription as to what institution should measure in order to balance data attributes with the financial perspective including the voice of the voice of the stakeholder (Mitchell 2012, p.56).

It retains traditional financial measures but includes success metrics that allows the management to see process capabilities, supplier roles, employee activity, and customer relationship.

Evaluation of Success

Use of research and data are the most appropriate methods of initiative evaluation (Elliott 2012, p.107). A significant amount of data from previous research exists that can be used by different stakeholders in Swinburne university to do evaluation.

Major projects have been taken to inform employers, students, and the university academic staff and help in evaluating their progress.

Future Priorities

Among the future priorities for Swimburne University are having an environmentally sustainable Australia through proper transformation of land utilization, mineral, energy, and water (Flamos & Begg 2010, p.20).

The institution is aiming to achieve these goals through better understanding of environment and human systems and new technology use.

Improvements of mechanisms of responding to climate change by understanding the effects of climate change at the regional across Australia. This is because the climate conditions in Australia are highly variable and climatic variability is expected to have more significant impacts.

It is important to improve understanding the effects of climate change and variability and its impacts to the communities and the environment (Mitchell 2012, p.54).

List of References

Choi, T 2011, ‘Don’t Let Your Supply Chain Control Your Business’, Harvard Business Review, vol.89, no.12, pp. 112-117

Elliott, H, 2012, Back Road Bandit, Forbes, April 9, 2012, vol.189, no.6, pp.106-108.

Flamos, A, & Begg, K 2010, ‘Technology transfer insights for new climate regime’, Environment, Development & Sustainability, vol.12, no.1, pp. 19-33,

Genaidy, A, Sequeira, R, Tolaymat, T, Kohler, J, Wallace, S & Rinder, M 2010, ‘Integrating science and business models of sustainability for environmentally-challenging industries such as secondary lead smelters: A systematic review and analysis of findings’, Journal Of Environmental Management, vol.91, no.9, pp. 1872-1882

LEED Rating System: Its Effect on SH&E Practices in Construction’ 2011, Professional Safety, vol.56, no.12, pp. 25-27,

Mitchell, K 2012, ‘An Eye for Innovation: At Dietz & Co. Architects, Sustainability Is a Way of Life’, Businesswest, vol.27, no.19, pp. 53-58,

Streimikiene, D 2012, ‘The impact of international GHG trading regimes on penetration of new energy technologies and feasibility to implement EU Energy and Climate Package targets’, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol.16, no.4, pp. 2172-2177

Swift, JM 2011, ‘Persistence’, Healthcare Design, vol.11, no.4, pp. 24-31

Watson, RJ 2010, ‘Information Systems and Environmentally Sustainable Development: Energy Informatics and New Directions for the is Community’, MIS Quarterly, vol.34, no.1, pp. 23-38

Zhang, X, Shen, L, Tam, V & Lee, W 2012, ‘Barriers to implement extensive green roof systems: A Hong Kong study’, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, vol.16, no.1, pp. 314-319

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