Our resident Environmental specialist and trainer John Binns, is on hand to answer questions about our new online NEBOSH Environmental Certificate course. Question & Answers with John Binns How do you find the experience of presenting content for online courses & have you done this before? I think this is the third time I have presented the content for an RRC environmental management course. So, I am becoming a bit of an old hand! When I started my career in environmental management I certainly didn’t expect to ever be filmed at any time doing my job. The first time I completed the filming I was a little nervous, but I…
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The First Step to a Career in Environmental Management
I can’t believe that I have been working as an environmental management consultant and trainer for twenty years. Much like a professional footballer who is playing in his early thirties (I wish) I have achieved veteran status! My career has had its up and downs over the years. But I do not regret it for one minute. When considering the content for this post I thought I would identify what can be more challenging from my experience than carrying out a job. And that is getting a job in environmental management in the first place. The problem is that in competitive job markets, in order to be successful you need…
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Five New Year’s Resolutions for Environmental Practitioners
It that time of the year unfortunately, the festive season is over, winter is in full swing, at least if you are in the northern hemisphere and finances are generally low (at least until February!). However now is the time to set some environmental new year’s resolutions. In this post I’ve come up with a few ideas for environmental professionals. Some will be relevant to you, some not but at least it is a starting point, why not write your own list, but hopefully this will give you some ideas. Pick one impact that your organisation has on the environment, even something small and reduce this impact and tell people…
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It’s That Festive Time of The Year, Environmental Practitioners Let’s Be Positive!
It’s the time of the year when we all start to feel a bit happier than usual, holidays are on their way and as such we can all recharge our batteries and spend some time with our friends and family. I think it’s easy when you are involved in environmental management to be miserable. In some ways I wonder if I am in the business of gloom and doom, after all the process of training people about environmental management generally starts off with a long trawl through how humanity is destroying the environment. From climate change, to waste production to plastic pollution etc we seem to be having a significant…
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Bad Daisy! Risks Associated with Cattle
I was sitting in a neighbour’s kitchen recently with a group of folks who were talking about beating the bounds. This is an old tradition that goes back to medieval times where people walk around a parish boundary. The organiser was narrating the route and talking about possible hazards along the way and what he wanted done about them. When he got to one particular section he mentioned that he was worried about cows being in the field. He did not want dogs in with the cattle so proposed that the walkers with dogs should take an alternative route (which does not follow the boundary) to avoid agitating the cattle.…
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Tacking Issues of Sustainable Development with ISO 14001
A rather dry necessity routed in process and procedures? Something usually put in place because it is required by supply chain partners and clients? Or to get ahead in a procurement process? Or, is ISO 14001 an important piece of the sustainable development jigsaw – addressing environmental sustainability issues, engaging employees and customers, opening up new opportunities and markets and actually something that can be used to stimulate strategic and cultural change? It depends on how it is used and who is using it. I have always argued the second point – and the updated version of the environmental management standard ISO 14001 makes that argument more compelling. Treat it…
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Finding Info about The Environment Where You Live or Work
NEBOSH Diploma in Environmental Management Element 7 In this blog post I take a look at the key sources of information that can be accessed to understand the environment in an area. As you might be aware, it is generally a legal requirement for environmental information collected by public bodies to be made available to the public. Pretty much all of this information can be accessed for free on the internet. First we’ll look at the Environment Agency, who operate a site known as ‘what’s in your backyard’. Here you can access a broad range of environment related information covering issues such as flooding, nitrate vulnerable zones, landfill sites and…
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Are More Flood Defences The Answer?
NEBOSH Diploma in Environmental Management Element 11 The recent floods in late December 2015 and early January 2016 have been some of the worst on record. Many thousands of people have been affected and the cost of damage caused by the floods is projected to be over £1.5 billion. I thought in this blog post it would be interesting to take a look at what causes flooding and how flood risk can be managed. Historically, flooding was reduced by the building of flood defences for communities with little consideration of keeping water in uplands and flood plains. Such techniques might include building flood barriers (think the Thames Barrier) and installing…
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Civil Sanctions vs Criminal Sanctions for Environmental Offences
Let’s All be Civil If there is one topic I find causes confusion for students (as well as aspects and impacts, that is – see my earlier post!) it is civil sanctions – as covered in Element 5, Unit 1 of the NEBOSH Environmental Diploma. It does take some time to get your head around them but, believe me, it will be worth it! Civil sanctions are an attempt to improve the legal system by introducing a set of sanctions in criminal law that have their heart in civil law. They have been around in England and Wales since 2010. When an order and a subsequent amendment were introduced to…
