Perspectives on skills & training – part one

Environmental responsibilities increase demand for training
As Environmental Management Systems (EMS) have now become an essential part of our standard operating procedures and thought processes, it is becoming increasingly necessary for field and operational staff in the industries of engineering, manufacturing, construction, and mining to take on the responsibilities of the supervision of on-site environmental compliance.
Phil Abernethy, managing director of Absorb Environmental Solutions points out, “Personnel such as OH&S Officers, Quality Assessors, and Production Managers have the appropriate experience and qualifications when it comes to their chosen field, the main issue that exists is how to tackle their new environmental management tasks.”
He said many find they lack the knowledge of how to handle environmental impacts, including how to objectively complete an environmental site audit and to accurately measure the risk associated with each area.
“The objective of an EMS is not only to measure your site’s Environmental Compliance and manage risk, but to continually improve your site’s environmental performance. The successful result is to have confident, suitably trained staff with the right equipment and the correct site procedures to minimise potential harm to themselves, the environment, and the company.” Abernethy said.
Seeing this demand in the market, Abernethy responded by creating a Certificate IV in On-Site Environmental Management in 2007. After extensive industry consultation, he decided the best approach was to design a comprehensive nationally recognised course that developed environmental management skills on a practical level, covering the legislation, theory and practice of delivering positive environmental outcomes.
“My philosophy has always been to provide practical environmental knowledge that allows participants to immediately apply new environmental awareness to their day to day work,” he said.
Significantly, this course has provided attendees with a practical foundation in the policies and principles to create and implement their own Site Environmental Management Plan. The course has now been running for over three years with more than 750 participants from a wide range of industries and occupations.
“I wanted to able to create a training environment where trainers could inspire people and foster a motivation to commit to good environmental governance. Rather than reacting from fear of government penalties, the most powerful motivation to comply with environmental standards should be a sense of personal and professional pride in our standard of conduct, and a desire to meet wider community expectations of us and the organisations we work for,” said Abernethy.
Absorb Environmental Solutions has now launched an Advanced Diploma in Environmental Management. Designed for environmental managers, this course builds on the Certificate IV course and concentrates on the practical application of environmental management and developing a deeper understanding of the issues which environmental managers are required to handle.

Report calls for resources giants to get serious about supporting aboriginal businesses
The Pilbara Aboriginal Contractors Association (PACA), a group formed to promote, foster and support Aboriginal business owners and entrepreneurs in the Pilbara has released a report which details a distinct lack of opportunities for Aboriginal contractors in the rich mining region.
PACA is pressuring the State Government to respond to what it sees as discriminatory behaviour displayed by the majority of resource operators. This discrimination is in the form of not notifying of tender opportunities, or ensuring that Aboriginal businesses cannot qualify in the tender process.
The PACA report proposes various legislative changes to require business entities to open up business opportunities to Aboriginal contractors. If adopted these changes would assist the Prime Minister to achieve a political goal which he referred to in a speech delivered recently. What he named ‘Closing the Gap’, a target designed to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Aborigines and non-Aborigines within the decade.
Despite the highly profitable nature of the resource sector, Aboriginal people and in particular Aboriginal contractors have not benefited from the flow on that one would expect the local communities to be afforded. It is PACA’s belief that the rhetoric fails to meet reality.
In a 2009 Commonwealth Government report entitled “Closing the Gap on Indigenous Disadvantage; the Challenge for Australia”, it was noted that as at 2006, 48 per cent of the Aboriginal workforce aged population was in employment compared to 72 per cent for the non-Aboriginal workforce aged population.
The report also suggested that with the enormous costs associated with ‘fly in fly out’ labour, it would make social and commercial sense to look to Aboriginal businesses for solutions. By engaging with Aboriginal business the resources sector too can play a positive part in ‘closing the gap’.
According to PACA, if Aboriginal businesses were able to get a fair share of resource contracts in the Pilbara over the next 5-20 years, the social and economic fabric of every Pilbara Aboriginal person and the community as a whole would be positively affected.
For more information on PACA’s report visit: www.pacainc.org/

To read the final part of this report see next week’s AJM newswire