Managing your impact on the environment and complying with your legal responsibilities ensures your growing business is competitive, environmentally friendly and able to realise possible financial benefits.
Environmental management plans
Incorporating environmental management strategies into your existing business plan or developing an environmental management plan can help you introduce effective 'green' practices in your business. As part of your planning, you can perform an environmental audit to help you assess which areas of your business impact on the environment, and to what extent. An environmental management system can also help you manage your impacts by integrating environmental management into your daily operations.
Minimise your impact
Using sustainable resources and employing proper recycling and waste reduction measures can not only have a positive effect on the environment, but can also improve your profitability and your reputation with customers.
Environmental licences
To ensure your business and the environment is protected, you need to know if your business activities fall under environmental legislation and licensing.
Australian, state and territory environment legislation applies to certain business activities and is administered by both state and local governments in the form of licences and permits.
Environmental standards and labelling requirements
Certain goods or appliances manufactured or imported into Australia may need to comply with environmental standards before they can be sold. Each standard sets out a rating and labelling system to inform consumers on how efficiently a product uses an environmental resource, and has the added benefit of promoting suppliers with high rating products.
Environmental reporting obligations
Before you can reduce your impact on the environment, you need to know which areas of your business are causing the most impact. Some common reports that can help you measure your impact include greenhouse and energy reporting, corporate sustainability reporting or triple bottom line reporting, and natural resource management monitoring.
For most businesses, environmental reporting is voluntary but there are some mandatory industry reporting requirements that may apply to your business.
