8607-525 Improving and Maintaining the Organisation’s Environmental Performance

Unit Overview

8607-525 Improving and Maintaining the Organisation’s Environmental Performance is one of the main units within the ILM Level 5 qualification in leadership and management. The unit focuses on improving environmental sustainability. In the modern world, environmental issues and corporate social responsibility have become paramount in achieving the desired performances in relation to organisational performance. As such, it is very critical for the leaders and stakeholders within the organisations to understand the role that they can play in improving and maintaining environmental sustainability and performance in relation to these standards. The approach further involves being able to understand the legal frameworks that have been put in place to guide the practices and procedures that could impact environmental sustainability.

8607-525 Improving and Maintaining the Organisation’s Environmental Performance is a unit within the ILM module that presents the learners with the opportunity to acquire relevant information on environmental sustainability and the need to improve the performance of the organisation in that aspect. The unit focuses on identifying the organisational context and understanding the policies developed within the organisation to protect the environment. The main aim of the unit is to develop an understanding of the role and responsibilities of the leaders in contributing to improving and maintaining better environmental performance.

Suitability of the Unit

Environmental sustainability is a common factor that informs contemporary organisational activities. Organisation to ensure that the organisation meets the set standards. The process involves being able to effectively implement policies and procedures that are legal and ethical in relation to environmental sustainability. As such, all stakeholders must be able to understand the set standards, legal principles and approaches that can be taken to improve environmental sustainability. 8607-525 Improving and Maintaining the Organisation’s Environmental Performance is therefore a unit that is highly suitable for different stakeholders. The unit covers critical theoretical and practical information that is aligned to the accomplishment of the goals and objectives aligned to environmental sustainability and conservation.

The unit is designed to meet the needs and learning goals of the middle managers within the organisation. These are leaders in the second rank of leadership within the organisation tasks with the duty and responsibility of making tactical decisions. The unit provides these leaders with information and knowledge that boosts their contribution towards practices that are based on environmental sustainability, the unit, however, is not limited to the middle managers. It is effective and suitable for other leaders within the organisation. Executive managers can use it to develop effective organisational-level strategies and plans. The junior managers, team leaders and employees can also contribute towards achieving the desired goals and objectives in line with environmental performance in their areas of operation. This unit is also suitable for external consultants who play an active role in supporting decision-making within the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Explain the concept of environmental sustainability as well as the reason why it is a strategic issue in the context of the organisation

• Review legislative requirements and codes of practices that are related to environmental sustainability and the impact on these aspects within the organisation

• Evaluate the organisation’s current environmental sustainability strategy and policies in relation to the set standards

• Recommend improvements that can be made in the organisations’ current environmental policies an environmental sustainability strategy to ensure that it meets the set standards

• Undertake an environmental audit or baseline environmental audit using various methodologies in their area of responsibility that is aimed at improving environmental performance

• Produce an audit report that covers the findings of the recommendations, action plan and approaches that can be used to monitor and evaluate the plans used to maintain improvements.

Key Learning Areas

8607-525 Improving and Maintaining the Organisation’s Environmental Performance is a unit that focuses on building the understanding of environmental issues and aspects. The unit covers critical elements that involve understanding the principles of environmental sustainability. Some of the main areas of learning covered within the unit include:

Strategic Context of Environmental Sustainability

This area of learning lays the basic foundations that are associated with managing environmental sustainability. The approach involves laying basic principles geared towards effective management of the environment. The learner is guided to understand the reason for responding to sustainability and the challenges associated with these approaches. The practice also helps to improve the understanding of regulatory requirements and environmental standards that are implemented within the workplace. It also covers critical elements such as understanding the environmental responsibilities of the managers and the methods implemented within the workplace to reduce carbon print. Learners are also guided to the best approaches to reporting, including the triple bottom line reporting, which includes the profit, people and planet.

Environmental Audit

This area of learning focuses on helping the learners to understand the principles associated with being able to scan the environmental suitability standards that have been established within the workplace. It helps to ensure that leaders within the organisation are able to implement strategies for understanding environmental practice. This includes understanding the environmental management systems within their regions, such as BS11992 and BS7750 n the British standards. The leaders are also guided to understand the practices, procedures and methodologies that are used to conduct an environmental sustainability audit within the workplace. Lastly, they are guided to understand approaches that can be used to document the audit and inform implementation of strategies in different areas of practice.

Evaluation

Upon completion of the unit, the learner is required to be able to master both theory and practice associated with managing environmental sustainability. 8607-525 Improving and Maintaining the Organization’s Environmental Performance is evaluated using different methods of evaluation. A written assessment is used to evaluate the mastery of theoretical information learned within the unit, while supervised practice and simulated exercise are critical in achieving the evaluation of practice skills that are implemented within the workplace setting.