Read the case study below and then answer to the questions which follow:

COMPANY A is a small company that grows and nurtures a wide variety of plants for garden centres. The companys strong link with nature gives it a moral responsibility to protect the environment. It is this responsibility which drove COMPANY A to reduce its impact on the environment and promote sustainability.

Saving energy Solar is the future: Before implementing the EMS, COMPANY A was using large amounts of oil and electricity to provide heat and power. By focusing on energy reduction in the EMS, COMPANY A was able to reduce its annual overall energy use by 68%, or 591,458 kWh per m of turnover. In 2019, COMPANY A will source 35% to 45% of the nurserys annual electricity usage from a new solar photovoltaic system. Not only will this project reduce COMPANY As carbon footprint and reliance on fossil fuel generated energy by up to 50,000 kWh per year, but it will save around 3,500 on its annual energy bill and generate additional revenue through the Feed-In-Tariffs scheme.

Self sustaining irrigation of plants: A significant environmental aspect of COMPANY AS operations is the volume of water required to irrigate the plants in glass houses. The company therefore focused on water reduction and delivered improvements in water efficiency. More recently COMPANY A researched the most efficient irrigation methods and changed from manual, less accurate methods to an intelligent automated control watering system. In addition, instead of relying on mains water, COMPANY A has installed a large reservoir to collect rainfall and a runoff system which together supply all the irrigation demands for the nursery.

What a waste: Growing and distributing plants produces a lot of waste, notably: plastic pots, cardboard and plastic film packaging. The office and staff room generates a lot of paper waste, cans and glass waste.

Cost savings: EMS-driven actions such as reducing the use of raw materials such as peat, have led to significant cost savings of over 41,0001 per year.

Unforeseen benefits: The EMS has given COMPANY A, a common goal to focus on: providing staff with practical, visible channels to promote and demonstrate their own ethics and values. The positive cultural changes and the improved working environment resulting from the EMS have given COMPANY A, a new way to tackle problems.

(a) Highlight the key benefits after the implementation of the EMS at COMPANY A.

(b) COMPANY A wanted to reduce the levels of waste sent to landfill. Identify opportunities that may exist in this company to enable it to meet this objective.

(c) How can ISO 14001 certification increase business sales?

(d) How can communication help to improve staff participation in the implementation of EMS?

(e) Which other Environmental Management tool can complement the ISO 14001 to inform other industries about its environmental performance? [5+5+ 5+5+5 = 25 marks]