New water treatment plant opened BercoSul takes its ... - Berco S.p.A

EDUCATION ON THE ENVIRONMENT
FOR BERCO EMPLOYEES
Training and awareness courses started in January
on safeguarding the environment in line with ISO 14001
Point 4.4.2 of UNI EN ISO 14001,
the standard applied by Berco
in its environmental management
system, is entitled “training,
awareness and responsibilities”.
This point stresses how proper
training and awareness of the
personnel in an organisation are
absolutely indispensable factors
in achieving the certification and
launching a process of continuous
improvement.
This need is further underlined
by higher management’s conviction
that all personnel, no matter what
their roles and levels, must be
made aware of the various
environmental problems related
to our factory if pollution is to
be prevented in an effective,
enlightened way.
And so, what began as compliance
with a point in the standard has
been developed into a valid and
important occasion for launching
an ‘environmental awareness’
campaign, based on the importance
of the company conforming to
an environmental policy and
centering on the explanation of
the commitments taken concerning
environmental protection and on
the possible consequences of the
work we perform. Each one of us
is an essential element in improving
the company’s environmental
performance, not only because
the things we do can have a direct
impact on the environmental
resources around us, but also
because the achievement of a
company goal is made possible
thanks also to the high value of
our individual input and actions,
as these too contribute to the
attainment of ‘good general
behaviour in relation to the
environment’.
In1999, when the concept of an
environmental management
system was first introduced, a
whole series of training courses for
Berco personnel was planned.
These courses are in 8-hour or
16-hour modules, in which staff
learn about the UNI EN ISO 14001
Standard, what it means to adopt
an environmental management
system and the most significant
environmental aspects of our own
particular situation (i.e. the
management of waste, dumps,
effluent, the production of noise
with an external impact, the
rationalisation of the use of
resources, etc.).
This year too, the scheduled
training meetings ran from January
to March, with two groups of
department supervisors and team
leaders from different Berco areas
attending the course in the rooms
made available in the CESTA
training centre on alternating
Saturday mornings.
A number of different topics were
touched on in the meetings:
‘sustainable growth’, voluntary
management systems, environmental
reference standards, waste, water,
air and soil.
In addition, all the environmental
procedures adopted in our factory
were looked at as a whole, with
descriptions of the pollution
prevention systems, discussions
on the daily problems arising and,
finally, remarks and suggestions.
And it was from one of these
suggestions that the proposal to
organise a ‘guided tour’ around all
the most significant environmental
aspects of our factory arose.
Consequently, on the 11th of April
many department supervisors and
team leaders could be seen
‘abandoning’ their departments
and the classroom for a while to
take a look at the ‘environmental
management’ of our factory first
hand, like a group of inquisitive
first-time visitors following the
strange route marked out by the
various features of the Ecology
and Environment Service.
And so, if the problem of water was
initially, for them, a procedure
based on simply calling out the
specialist service concerned, the
‘tour’ allowed them to look at the
entire question in all its finest
details: the new purification
system, a comparison between
the old and new systems, the
problems involved in controlling
water, and so on.
The same thing for waste: after
looking at the differential waste
collection methods in the
departments they went on to see
the old and new dumps with all
their special characteristics and
systems. The meeting was a
success, and we can say this with
great satisfaction because the
objective was achieved.
In thanking all those who took
part in the training experience,
not only for their attendance but
also for their precious suggestions,
we would like to end this article
with a comment made by one of
the participants: “When I asked to
see the new purification unit and
the new dump, I somehow thought
I was asking about something
not really all that essential, but now
I’m convinced that it was very
useful, and nothing like I thought
it would be”. Somebody else added:
“today, many of us have touched
on the real substance and scale of
the company with our own hands,
not only in the physicalgeometrical
sense, but above all
in the technological sense, with
an understanding of how it is
projected into the future in terms
of respect for the environment”.