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Societies, small groups and individuals usually have goals to achieve in their lives, and the sole purpose of any organization, whether it is public or private, is accomplish the goals which is established for. Organizations usually document what is required to be achieved and how it is going to be done, and that document is called policy. Though organizational missions differ, sustainable development becomes inevitable goal for most of them, at least in the developed countries. This essay is going to analyze how AECOM Company monitors its sustainable policy, conclusions will be drawn to highlight the effectiveness of the monitoring process, and, at the end, the report will give recommendations, if required, to improve this process, however, discussions on policy theory in general will be addressed before the analysis, to provide the basis for the analysis. The reason of selecting private organization: AECOM Company sustainable policy is that business is very important element in the sustainable development. The United Nations discusses the importance of business to achieve sustainable future. I believe if all businesses managed its impact on the environment, there would be a greater chance for sustainable future. Policy making process involves many steps, policy process is summarized by Thomas (2007) in figure 1.1 below

Source: Thomas (2007) Figure 1.1 The basic policy process

Figure 1.1 shows, in general, basic policy steps that policy maker should consider when plan and implement certain policy, and these steps are applied on wide range of policies including sustainable policy. Although ‘policy making rarely follows the smooth linear flow that arrows of the cycle suggest’ as Thomas (2007) states, none of the steps should be neglected when involving in sustainable policy making. International Organization for Standardization (2004) discusses that environmental policy making involves: planning; implementation and operation; checking and management review, that are almost the same steps, but with different terminology. For instance, Australian government policy cycle as indicated by Bridgman and Davis (1998, cited in Thomas 2007) highlights all the mentioned steps. Therefore, whenever involving in policy work, in general, and specifically in sustainable policy, all the steps need to be considered. Many policies: main and sub-policies may exist in the same organization, whether it is a company or a government, and those policies usually overlap. This process is called nesting of policies. A Company may have branches, each branch has different goal, but all branches are connected to the head office, and should achieve overall organizational objective. Thomas (2007) discusses how Australian environmental policies are connected and nested. For example, River Murray Corridor of Green Program in Victoria is connected with Conservation of Australian Species and Ecological Communities Threatened that connected to Extinction Australian National Strategy, which is connected to National Environmental Protection Council, which is result of the 1992 UNCED Conference in Rio de Janeiro (Thomas). So, different policies may interact between each other.

Nesting of policies is good practice to achieve overall organizational objective. When different parties are pushing to achieve same objective there is more chance for that objective to be accomplished. Thomas (2007) stats ‘the nesting of policies can be an important element for implementation of goals. For instance, customers are usually more welling to deal with large organizations, as there is a higher chance to accomplish the required service, that is because there is a nesting of policy and so many parties are pushing to fulfill their expectations. Accordingly, nesting of policies is an effective way to achieve sustainable development goals. Monitoring stage is the fourth stage in policy process which is usually begins with the beginning of implementation stage (Thomas 2007) and comes before evaluation. After establishing, documenting and implementing a policy, verification whether the objectives have been met or no needs to be carried out, that verification is monitoring. Validation of implementation methods is carried out while conducting monitoring stage. For example, if an organization will commit to reduce its energy consumption by a 20 percent, collection of energy bills are required to monitor whether the organization achieves its targets. Therefore, conducting monitoring stage is essential part of policy work, and policy makers should consider that always.

Planning for monitoring process usually involves selecting indicators and establishing the procedures which specifies information collection method (Thomas 2007). The collected information is used to gauge the success of the policy. Thomas (2007, p. 294) states ‘monitoring is the collection of data for use in the evaluation’. Tons of solid waste generated and recycled per capita per year is an example of sustainable development policy indicator established by the Sustainable Seattle project in the early 1990’s. Collection of data according specific indicators is the main aspect of monitoring.

Having discussed the policy theory in general, at the beginning, and highlighted an introduction about monitoring stage, best practices about that stage will be discussed in the next paragraphs.

Policy indicators are an important element of monitoring stage, and they should be measureable. If a company set a goal to reduce its impact on environment, but did not specify tools for measurement, will that goal make sense? It is not enough that a company has a goal to reduce its emissions, more specific measureable details should be addressed: the quantities which are needed to be reduced; and the time that quantities will be reduced on. Environmental Sustainable Development (1995 cited in Thomas 2007, p. 297) indicates that World Bank advices that indicators should measureable. Therefore, only measureable indicators should be selected.

Although there is no evidence that such measurements have been carried out so far, a company needs to demonstrate how its impacts do not exceed the company ecological footprint capacity. It is not enough only to reduce a company’s impact, rather than that, a company needs to go a step further and show the link between their actions and societies vision of a sustainable future. Munchenberg (2011 cited in RMIT Learning Hub) discusses how cars manufacturers in Australia start to think whether they need to produced cars anymore, rather than only think to produce fuel efficient cars. So, link between world sustainable development and a company measurement system should be highlighted.

All policy aspects should be covered properly, more specifically; in terms of environmental policy all the organizational environmental impacts should be covered in measurement process. Thomas (2007, p. 295) states ‘the purpose of an indicator is to show how well something is working’. If a company does not measure how much they consume energy, will that demonstrate how well their environmental policy is working? Environmental policy indicators should cover all environmental impacts.

Quality of information should be proven. According to Thomas (2007), the whole point of monitoring and evaluation is to collect information, evaluate it in order to take better decisions to continually improve the situation. If data are accurate, proper decisions will be taken. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2011) provides declaration and sets of methodologies in order to ensure the quality of information that it provides to Australian decision makers. For example, if incorrect information stated that Australian dollar exchange rate decreases, Australian industries would loose enormous amount of money by investing in the market. Reinikka and Svensson (2003) published a research report called The Power of Information, they conducts a policy experiment on educational service in Uganda. They concluded how providing correct information to students’ parents can have a huge impact on monitoring local officials who handle the large schools. So, conformation of the quality of data collected during monitoring stage is very important aspect.

Those indicators should be selected carefully. Selecting the wrong indicator may result in some information spread all over the company in a way some internal, or external, parties can use it politically (Thomas 2007). Jorijani and Dyer (1996, cited in Thomas 2007, p. 295) assert that indicators selection should be based on criteria. For instance, providing information about how much the company uses electricity might be used by the media against them and mention that company is consuming electricity more than they have to. So, the security of information should be addressed when selecting indicators.

Having set the best practice that certain environmental policy monitoring system should be, discussion about monitoring system will be addressed in the next paragraphs. At the end of discussion it will be concluded whether AECOM conforms to the best practice or no. The company indicators are measureable. Two of company targets for the year 2010: 10% reduction in carbon emissions (per person) resulted from building electricity use, and 10% reduction in water use are good examples. If it is only mentioned that energy electricity and water consumption required to be reduced, will that make sense? Measureable indicators means: it needs to be quantifiable (Jorjani and Dyer 1996, cited in Thomas 2007, p. 295) and address the period that certain quantity needs to be achieved. In terms of water consumption the term quantifiable can be addressed by either using number of cubic metres, or comparing it with other performance: previews consumption; another company; or theoretical quantity (RMIT Learning Hub). 10% reduction addresses the second quantifiable method where consumption will be compared with previews performance. To be achieved within the year 2010, on the other hand, stand for the period. There are many examples of measureable indicators which can back the argument, one of Sustainable Seattle project indicators (Sustainable Seattle 1998 cited by Thomas 2007, p. 299), which are seen by Thomas (2007) as successful indicators, is tons of solid waste generated and recycled per capita per year. It is quantifiable: number of tons, and within a period of time: year. Another example of measureable indicator is achieving 2.5 tones emissions of CO2 per Australian capita in 2050 (Pears 2011, cited in RMIT Learning Hub 2011). 2.5 tons discusses the quantity, and the period that target is need to be achieved on is 2050. Therefore, the company sustainable indicators addresses good example of measureable indicators.

There is no measure whether the Earth renews the ecological services that the company uses. According to EPA Victoria (2011), the whole point of sustainable development is the humanity should reduce their impact on the environment in a way the Earth can renew ecological services that societies use. While 10% reduction in water consumption might be seen as a good example, the company impact on the Earth water services might be a lot more in a way it should reduce its consumption by 70%. Although there are no examples of such measures in other organizations yet, global company and leader in environmental services such AECOM should do that.

Although AECOM environmental performance indicators covers most of the company’s environmental impacts in a broadly based, there are other impacts can be covered. Currently, indicators cover the following issues in the offices only: direct and indirect energy efficiency; waste management; water efficiency and procurement. However, there are other impacts which cover the site, such as: sites energy efficiency; constructed buildings life-cycles; embodied energy in the constructed buildings; construction raw materials efficiency; embodied energy in construction raw materials; site procurement selectivity. As a key player in master planning in the Middle east region, sustainable planning indicators can be set to monitor the percentage of projects that sustainable planning has been taken into the consideration. Even more, indicators can be set to monitor to what extent certain project has consider sustainability during planning stage: building location; solar access and building envelop. Commonwealth of Australia (2011) in a joint initiative with the design and construction industries has published the 4th edition of your home technical manual that contains the recent methods that manage domestic sector environmental impact. Munchenberg the business council of Australia interviewed by Anne Martinelli (2011) discusses that the recent business environmental approach in Australia questions the need for a certain product or service, rather than reducing the emissions resulted from producing or providing that particular product or service. For example, RICOH UK Products Ltd. has established energy efficiency indicators for its sites, as well as its offices (BSI 2011). Therefore, other performance indicators can be established to monitor other areas of the corporate environmental impact.

In 2009 the company has implemented its monitoring process, but the quality of data collection method was not demonstrated. In fact the picture can be completely different. According to AECOM (2009), for the year 2009 data has been collected only from 38 offices out of 89 around the world. Despite the fact that it accounts for less than 50% of the total offices, it did not supported by evidence that it is a high quality data. Although the collected data account for 78% out of the 40 large offices with more than 25 employees (AECOM 2009), number of employees does not give the most accurate indicator for the size of operation in that particular office. In other words many small offices that have manufacturing activities might have bigger environmental impact than large ones with only management activities. Raymond (2009) discusses in his study about the quality of data collection, and how the data can be assessed in order to evaluate its quality. For instance, considering CIA decisions are based on ethical principles, According to Iraq Body Count website (2011) more than 112,200 Iraqis have been killed since Iraq invasion in 2003 due the poor data quality of Iraq mass destruction weapons. International Organization for Standardization (2009) was issued the standard of assessing quality of data and recommends that to be used by different businesses. AECOM need to put more efforts to demonstrate the quality of its monitoring process.

In terms of security of information that has been collected and presented publicly in the report, in general, there is no much valuable data that can be used politically by external parties, but some of it can be used by other employees inside the organization. The report shows carbon footprint per employee generated by each office. Although there are a lot of factors that effects on traveling CO2 emissions, such as: trips distance and used fuels, number of trips is one of the important factors. That information might be used politically by employees work in offices that force their employees to travel more frequent. Though, it depends on the person whether like travelling or no, it is an area of concern for some employees. A story published by US Today (1997) discusses that a person speaks from experience says that less traveling jobs attracting more employees. For example, Career One the Australian famous career website asks about whether the applicant prefer to travel or no. Data security management should be taken more seriously.

In conclusion, the company monitoring system does not conform to the best practice that has been discussed at the beginning of this essay. Although measureable indicators are established, other aspects need to be taken care of. Measurement system should demonstrate how the company uses natural resources less than the capacity of the Earth to renew them, performance indicators do not cover all company’s environmental impacts, no evidence have been provided to demonstrate the quality of information and It seems that no much efforts have been focused on data security.

The report recommends that the company to take into its consideration the following: establish system can prove that current company’s actions will lead to a sustainable future. All environmental impacts need to be addressed in their monitoring system. Company product lifecycle, embodied energy in company’s buildings and facilities are examples. Demonstration that its products, which are mostly constructed buildings, have a minimum or no impact, during its lifecycle, on environment. Selecting of raw materials that used for construction activity needs to be improved: embodied energy in the raw material needs to be taken in the consideration. Put more effort into data security and how might be used against the company: present vehicles and flights footprint details as one category, or all carbon footprints can be presented in a way based on direct emissions and indirect emissions, which represent electricity, gas, flights and vehicles. Implement information quality verification management system, where accuracy of data is required to be proved. Data security procedures and verifications need to be applied

Finally, I need to mention that the discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of AECOM sustainability policy gave me a deeper understanding of the best practices of monitoring process. More specifically, I understand how the key performance indicators should establish and what the required specifications are. For future policy work, this experience gave me the confident to write proper audit reports, which is the field that I’m working in.

References: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2009, ABS Data Quality Framework, cat. No. 1520.0, ABS, Canberra, viewed 11 October 2011, < http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/1520.0Main%20Features1May+2009 >.

British Standards Institute, 2007, Ricoh UK Products Ltd ISO 14001 case study, British Standards Institute, viewed 28 September 2011, < http://www.bsi-emea.com/Environment/CaseStudies/Ricoh.pdf >.

Commonwealth of Australia, 2010, Your home technical manual, Your Home, viewed 28 September 2011, < http://www.yourhome.gov.au/technical/index.html >.

EPA Victoria, 2011, Ecological footprint, EPA Victoria, viewed 11 October 2011 < http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/ecologicalfootprint/ >. Iraq Body Count, 2011, Iraq Body Count, viewed on 28 September 2011, < http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ >.

International Organization for Standardization 2009, Master data: Exchange of characteristic data: Accuracy, ISO/TS 8000-130:2009, International Organization for Standardization, Geneva.

International Organization for Standardization 2004, Environmental management systems-Requirements with guidance for use, AS/NZS ISO 14001:2004, Standards Australia, Sydney.

Pears, A 2011, Climate change and energy, course reading from ARCH 1269, RMIT University, Melbourne, viewed 28 September 2011, RMIT University Learning Hub.

Planning, design and development department in AECOM, 2009, 2008/2009 Sustainability Report, AECOM, San Francisco. United Nations, 2003, The UN & Business, United Nations, viewed 11 October 2011, < http://www.un.org/partners/business/otherpages/guide.htm >.

Raymod, T. 2009, Method for evaluating the quality of data collection in a manufacturing environment.

Thomas, I 2007, Environmental policy: Australian practice in the context of theory, The Federation Press, Sydney.

Thomas, I 2011, Interview with Steven Munchenberg – Business Council of Australia, course reading from ENVI1127_1150, RMIT University, Melbourne, viewed 11 October 2011, RMIT University Learning Hub.