Sustainable Development

Task 1

Sustainable development should result to in benefits that have lasting positive effects. Ideally, development should not exhaust the available resources like raw materials, inputs and skilled labor. Sustainable development should ensure that the development meets specific conditions in respect to of sustainability. It should preserve the natural environment and ensure continuity of the production process in the future. Sustainable development should ensure that that the non renewable resources are not exhausted. It should ensure that the environment degradation is ceased at all costs for the sake of the future generation; the evolving new technology should ensure that it reduces the negative impacts on the environment. There are certain factors that affect the sustainability of organization. These are:

• The cost of development. Development should only use low investment cost.
• Adoption of the local skills. An organization should use skills which are easily available locally with or without special training.
• The output of the organization should meet the basic needs of the local people. The products or services as a result of development should ensure it meets the needs of the whole organization.
• Import substitution and forex saving. The organization should involve in activities which saves the resources by using locally available raw materials instead of importing.
• Profit generation. The organization should involve in activities which are profitable to it. It should invest in viable projects which will yield good rewards.
• An organization should  maintain environmental harmony
• An organization should use easy and simple technology. This will ensure that the employees can adopt the technology without a lot of cost. Though the technology should be simple, it should meet the demands of the organization.
• Continuity. An organization should ensure that it continues even after the current management has ceased to exist.
• An organization should have support for all the institution within the area it exists

An organization can improve sustainable practices by following the principles of the sustainable development.

TASK 2          

Environmental impact assessment is way of ensuring that the projects are analyzed in terms of the impact they have on the environment during the planning stage before they are implemented. This ensures that the negative short term and long term effects are controlled for the sustainability of the environment. It involves  analyzing the existing environmental impacts of the situation, this mainly involves checking the positive and negative impacts, then analyze how significant these impacts are and then corrective action is taken to either reduce, avoid or mitigate these impacts. An organization should seek advice from the relevant authorities on the requirements by the environmental assessment impacts formally before under taking any development project.

The Kenya Airways privatized corporation offering air transport in the Kenya and the world at large, beside providing air transport for its clients it also provides transport for its workers to and from work. The firm has been in operation for several decades that is since 1979. Several environmental impacts resulted from the activities of the business. There are the direct impacts and the indirect impacts. These impacts have led had positive and negative impacts on the environment. The direct impacts are;

·        There was  displacement of the wildlife on the area air port was constructed, more so some wild animals which were relocated have become extinct due to change of their natural habitat. Some people.

·        The plants and vegetation which was cleared to create space for the run ways have increased the rate of desertification. This is because this vegetation ways part of the ecosystem.

·        There is also direct air pollution which is through the gases emitted to the atmosphere; this is either by the airplanes or the vehicles which transport their employees. These emissions are green house gases which increase the rate of global warming. These gases are carbons or sulfates.  

There are the indirect effects which include:

• The cleared vegetation while constructing the airports has accelerated the rate of global warming. This is because through photosynthesis the vegetation acts as an air purifier by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.
• The air emitted in to the atmosphere reacts with rain water [H2O] leading to acidic, this type of rain has some affects the ecosystem like the micro organisms which inhabit in the soil, it also cause corrosion and weathering of the rocks.
• Air transport is also prune to accidents just like any other means of transport. This lead to the death or permanent disabilities on the victim a good example is the recent accident of the Kenya airways plane. Planes have also become the target of terrorist; there is a lot of damage once these terrorists meet their target both on the environment and infrastructure.

There are several ways in which there are the environment performance, this is mainly done by measuring the quantity of emissions into the environment.

The firm can improve its environmental performance by

·        Improving the measurements of the emissions in to the air from the firm’s actions.

·        The firm can also adopt an approach on public reporting and open a way to increase its communication with the customers and citizens on better means of operating.

·        Compare its performance with the other competitors on safety measures to improve its safety and control of the environmental impacts.

TASK 3

There are different approaches organisations take towards environmental management within their organisation. A firm can formulate its policies concerning the environment, this policy controls the firms actions towards the environment in all its operations, the policy is a guideline to be followed by the organisation. A firm can decide to be paying for the emissions beyond a certain acceptable level by the government or the concerned authorities. A firm can decide to be recycling all its wastes such that there are no emissions in to the environment

The recycled wastes are sold as raw materials to other firms or as finished goods.

As environmental policy should be preceded by an environmental statement, the statement should describe the redevelopments to be carried out in terms of the size design, and the site, it should describe the measure which have been put in place to avoid, reduce if possible the environmental impacts and should also give the reasons why the project was measures were preferred to others. An environmental policy should be clear and to the point and should also be in the firm’s objective.

 An environmental policy for an organization dealing in transportation business:

To ensure there is minimal environmental degradation in all our operations and doing environmental assessment regularly to improve our environment while working towards achieving the laid goals of our firm.

The UK and UE have laid down some legislation which all organizations have to comply. This legislation will have effects on the operations of many businesses. The legislation controls the quality of chemical used, they also ban use of some chemicals, drugs and fuels, they also control the emissions a firm can emit in to the environment and have registered the laws against those who don’t abide. This legislation has effects on many organisations. These effects include:

·        There is increased cost of production since they have to invest in machines which can efficiently use the available fuels.

·        There is increased awareness by many organizations about the effect of these emissions in to the environment.

·        Many organisations have to change their operation to abide by these set laws. These laws besides being targeted on the environment, they also target other areas such as the food safety e.g the European Good Agricultural Practices [EUREPGAP]. T rather means that those industries have to be certified or cease to operate

TASK 4

There are different kind’s f approaches to waste management. A firm can decide to be recycling its wastes; it can also decide to be selling the wastes to firms which can use them for production. Firms can also decide to dump the waste in an environmentally acceptable manner.

            There is much different kind of wastes; there are those which are biodegradable and those which are not. Waste can also be classified as whether they are solid wastes or liquid or gaseous wastes.

Wastes can be reduced by putting laws which ensure the limited resources are used efficiently, this can be done alternatively by ensuring that the machines used are efficient enough to reduce these wastes. There are many benefits derived from reduced waste production. These include:

·        There is reduced cost in the production since most of the inputs are used efficiently.

·        There reduced rate of global warming since most emissions are green house gases.

·        There is increased safety in the industries especially where the wastes are lethal.

·        There is increased economic well being where the wastes are recycled or sold.

 Reference

Environmental Impact Assessment (2004) retrieved on 9th May, available at   www.cpre.org.uk

Frederick Skaer (1999) Strategic Environmental Assessment for Transport

The official Kenya airways (2007) retrieved on 9th May, available at www.kenya-airways.com

Wikipedia the free encyclopedia (2007) retrieved on 9th May, available at www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment