Every product has a life cycle and understanding the components of the lifecycle is important for getting to grips with its true environmental impact. Traditionally, environmental impact assessments have considered just the manufacturing phase of a product – this would include direct impacts. Direct impacts are those that are physically released by the organisation itself. For example emissions from a boiler on site that causes air pollution or the discharge of oil into a nearby river causing damage to the river. They generally include pollution issues. These can be significant for some organisations and obviously need to be carefully assessed and controlled. Upstream Impacts However, considering direct impacts does not…
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Five Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint
Environmental destruction is prominent in the media at present, but often we can associate being environmentally friendly with certain actions and products, for example, the combustion engine has been targeted for producing high emissions. What if you considered the fact that almost every lifestyle-related action we take has a carbon footprint attached to it? Meaning, it is almost impossible to live a modern lifestyle with a zero carbon footprint. However, if we can lessen our impact every little helps and small changes are a positive step in the right direction. What is a carbon footprint? This phrase refers to the amount of carbon dioxide that is released into the environment…
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Benefits of Studying IEMA Foundation Certificate in Environmental Management
The IEMA Foundation Certificate in Environmental Management course provides a solid foundation of environmental and sustainability concepts and knowledge. It is aimed at individuals who uphold responsibility for environmental duties, allowing them to improve sustainable practices and increase positive impact on society and the environment. The course covers key learning outcomes such as; supporting change and transformation to improve sustainability, environmental law and regulation, and outlining implications of global environmental trends. Be Part of a Professional Body IEMA is the professional body for everyone working in the environmental and sustainability sectors. By studying the IEMA Foundation Certificate you are entitled to associate membership of IEMA (AIEMA), giving you access to…
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How Ecosystems Contribute to The Economy
Introduction A concept that has always interested me is that of ecosystem services. In a nutshell, an ecosystem service is a benefit that is provided by nature to humanity. A natural extension of this approach is to then try to value the ecosystem, which involves making an estimation of how much money the service brings to an economy or how much money the service saves. I am a big fan of this approach. Unfortunately, in society the case for protection of ecosystem is made stronger by thinking about what they offer to humanity rather than just looking. If we objectively understand why they are important this should provide a significant…
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Climate Change Warning – The Age of Stupid
Are we in ‘The Age of Less Stupid’? Recently while I was away working in Glasgow I was in a hotel room with little to watch on normal TV, I decided to take a look at BBC iPlayer to see if there was anything worth watching. I came across a film called ‘The Age of Stupid’. I’ve got to admit I’d never heard of this film and didn’t really know much about the content. It turned out to be a TV gamble worth taking and contained themes that are relevant to my day job as an environmental trainer and consultant. The Age of Stupid – Background I really enjoyed watching…
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Five Ways That We Can Recycle More Effectively
Most of us are guilty of not recycling enough, and unfortunately this is a global issue. An issue that is progressively getting worse, and the damage caused is becoming almost irreparable. Society has become accustomed to living a consumer driven lifestyle. Meaning that we buy products with the view of throwing them away once they are no longer of functional use. Although the UK recycling rate is (currently) gradually increasing, since a majority of our environmental laws derive from EU law; there is much scepticism as to whether the UK Government will prioritise recycling once we exit the EU. The UK recycling rate for Waste from Households (WfH; including IBA…
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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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NEBOSH Environmental Certificate Practical Assessment – Passing First Time
In this post I thought we could look at what you need to do to get a good mark in the NEBOSH Certificate in Environmental Management practical assignment (called in NEBOSH speak EC2). The assignment pass mark is 60% and you complete the assignment on your own and as such there is no set duration, although NEBOSH state it should probably take around 3 hours. There are two parts to the assignment these are completion of a NEBOSH provided review questionnaire followed by a report. 100 marks are available in total. Read the Guidance The first action you MUST complete is having a good look at the guidance available for…
