Contribute to the improvement of departmental or project environmental performance

This standard describes the skills and knowledge required to contribute to the improvements to departmental or project environmental performance.  The standard looks at how you can contribute to the planning, implementation, and review of improvements to environmental performance.

This standard is suitable for:

·        An individual with a specific brief to improve departmental or project environmental performance
·        An environmental management systems co-ordinator or equivalent
·        A consultant providing environmental advice.

This standard covers contributing to the implementation of these plans and communicating with all those involved in implementing improvements to departmental or project environmental performance.

Those involved in improving the departmental or project environmental performance, need to be involved in carbon accounting and Life Cycle Assessments of their products, services, and activities.  This will involve assessing their own carbon footprint of their products and services, as well as making decisions on who to purchase resources from, through evaluating their natural capital accounting and their cardon accounting.  Organisations need to be accountable for how they manage their impact on the environment, they need to become more sustainable.  The organisation needs to look at their carbon impact at global as well as a local level.  This will also involve assessing the impact.

1. Contribute to the development of plans to improve departmental or project environmental performance in accordance with organisational and current legislative requirements and within the required timescales and budgets
2. Check that the resources will support the implementation of plans to improve environmental performance and where possible are sustainably sourced
3. Contribute to implementing plans in a way which maximises the benefits to the department or project and to the environment and enables colleagues and relevant stakeholders, including those from protected characteristics, to contribute to improvements
4. Contribute to developing measures to monitor implemented improvements for environmental performance
5. Contribute to monitoring and evaluating implementations in accordance with relevant legislation and organisational requirements
6. Communicate and engage with relevant stakeholders as part of monitoring and evaluation
7. Contribute to reviewing the effectiveness of the monitoring process and use the results to improve future practice
8. Take action where implementation is not being achieved in accordance with the plans
9. Communicate the results of the evaluation to relevant stakeholders
10. Contribute to establishing the impact of the implementation and the benefits to the department or project and the environment

1. The reasons for and benefits of continual improvement of environmental performance
2. The types and sources of information required for planning improvements to departmental or project environmental performance
3. Resources required to implement potential improvements to departmental or project environmental performance
4. Relevant environmental, legal, and other non-regulatory environmental requirements applicable to the organisation
5. How to recognise the need for, and obtain, additional expertise and information within the required timescales
6. Ways in which relevant stakeholders, including those from protected characteristics, can be involved in the planning process, and reasons for their involvement
7. The process of contributing to developing a measurable, timetabled, and systematic implementation plan
8. Potential obstacles to improving departmental or project environmental performance and how to take these into account when contributing to planning
9. The required content of plans to improve departmental or project environmental performance
10. The appropriate presentation of plans for different purposes and different audiences
11. Methods and reasons for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of implemented improvements
12. Organisational requirements and procedures for monitoring and evaluating implemented improvements
13. The ways in which the results of the evaluation should be communicated
14. The types of documentation required for monitoring and evaluating the implementation of improvements