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Sharing the responsibility for environmental management: The role of a Sustainability Committee

Jade Brain

1 Environmental Officer, Coomes Consulting Group Pty Ltd, Level 2, 24 Albert Road South Melbourne, Victoria 3205. www.coomes.com.au email jade.brain@coomes.com.au

Abstract

A sustainability committee, green team or ewatch group are some common terms businesses and industry use to describe a team of key staff involved in providing leadership in environmental management and sustainability to their staff, suppliers and clients.

This paper will follow the commitment of two sustainability teams (Ewatch committee from Coomes Consulting & Green team from Moorabool Shire Council) to show the similarities and differences government & industry face when communicating & managing sustainability commitment from their committee members through to all staff and stakeholders.

Both committees’ focus on environmental legislation, government policy, local and global sustainability issues EMS objectives and action plans. But one team utilises all committee members through management acknowledgement and recognition, therefore communication and dissemination of sustainability is heavily reliant on all committee members. The other team focuses on 2 key members within the committee that request information from other members on an ad hoc basis with communication & dissemination of sustainability heavily reliant on 2 staff members only.

This paper will highlight the effective and negative impacts each committee system has, but at the same time highlight how each method achieves the same goal in transfer of knowledge & commitment through business & government across to staff and stakeholders.

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