In the late 1980s I was working as a research marine biologist when my then husband had an entrepreneurial spasm and decided to build and sell computers.  It was the classic case of a technical guy with an ability to sell and no business understanding buying himself a job.

I became increasingly involved so that we did not lose money and I ended up managing the business when he worried himself into a breakdown.

Like so many small business people we worked almost around the clock as we grew to a $5million turnover and 17 staff.  So close to round the clock that I ended up with a mattress in my office so I got some sleep.

It could not go on like that so I studied quality assurance and implemented an ISO 9001 quality management system or AS3902 as it was called then.

Wow! This revolutionized our lives.  A lot of that growth to $5 million turnover came after I put in the system.

We stopped having errors from people who were doing their best but were run off their feet, we had a really good feedback system to sort out why things had gone wrong and we saved a heap of money by having really clear documented contracts and contract amendments

And better than all, we had well trained staff who followed procedures and this gave us TIME.

The system also reduced the risks so that we were not worrying about whether staff could make mistakes that landed us with legal issues that could put our house at risk.

Those of you who are small biz owners know only too well that raising the money you need to grow your business generally means you have ended up borrowing from yourself and it has certainly got harder over the last eighteen months.

Some of you are like we were and like clients who tell me they have sold or mortgage their houses to fund their business growth and you fully understand the fear of being only one lawsuit away from losing everything.

And you know, as we did, that a well meaning employee or contractor could easily make an error and trigger a lawsuit.

If this is you, you probably put it into the “much too hard to think about” basket and go on working your butt off.

BUT……

Wouldn’t you love to discover the peace of mind and extra time that I did back in the computer shop days?

We built a wonderful beach house with a stunning view on top of a cliff and went there every weekend and even took holidays.  We managed three weeks in New Zealand and yes, the business was still there and making money with no dramas while we were away.  What a change!

Even if you are more established and not on this treadmill, you’ve still got the time pressure and that overwhelm.

You’ve got targets to meet, meetings to go to – and they run over time making you short on time to get out that report or proposal so you end up late home and sacrifice time with your kids.

Imagine how you will feel when you have the recognition of an international standard for you business!  Imaging being congratulated by your clients and your suppliers and the envy of competitors who still think that it is too hard for them.

I remember when Hagen Stehr of Clean Seas Aquaculture now a listed company was congratulated by his Japanese clients with full page colour adverts in the paper.  How proud to you think he felt and look at how his business has grown since I helped him implement his systems!

You will have recognition from markets and regulators and the ability to access tenders and contracts out of your reach without those standards

And the big one is greater efficiency and reduced stress!  Just imagine not needing to deal with staff errors and what is even worse, covered up errors that come back to bite much worse than if they had admitted it up front.

You know you can have this and you will be surprised at how easy and time effective it is using my training and coaching programs.  You can even Do-It-Yourself!

When we left the computer shop and I decided what to do next I started helping businesses to implement the systems that had helped me so much.

In 2003 I made the change from traditional consultancy to using training courses and then online training courses that I have written and steadily improved as I get more feedback from clients and audits, both theirs and my own.

Jean Kennedy of Turf Producers told me that “We found that now we have ISO 14001 in place everything is much easier.  It sounded like a big thing at the start but it is so easy to do because of the way you have simplified it and we loved the online training because we only need to take around 50 minutes each week away from taking sales calls”

In 2010 you can have Version 7 which has been make even easier to use with straightforward one point at a time PowerPoint slides and audio files you can listen to while you commute plus I have also added videos because I want you to be able to choose the learning style that suits you best.

You have a weekly teleconference where you get your questions answered and personal help.  Version 7 has split some weeks where I know a few clients had asked for more time so it is now three five-week modules and you get an extra week of my coaching on the phone in each module.  And I am available for email questions when you need me.

Why waste any more time?  You can register for my next group starting towards the end of March

OR…..
With the version 7 launch, I have 16 only copies of my previous version ISO 14001 Do-It-Yourself training packs which normally sell for $770 inc GST including 30 minutes phone coaching.

You will get my “Green Your Business: The Do-It-Yourself Manual” book as well as all the audio files and templates.

You can have this training package for only $330 inc gst and if you want the coaching this is available for $110 extra – sorry I can’t discount my time because I am busy with my full price clients and I like spending time with my family as well..

There are a few extras here for you.  You can choose to have the latest version of the forms and manual templates for $66 and the draft version DVD of the videos to play in your computer for another $88 – they will be more after these 16 pack have sold.

This amazing bargain is only available for ISO 14001 and only for this very limited number of 16.

When they are gone, they are gone so don’t miss out.  If you choose to add the two upgrades, you are getting the full new version for only $440 +gst of $484 total

I only do past version sales when I upgrade and this has averaged once a year so don’t miss out.

Fax me on 618 8311 5233 or phone 618 8311 5232 to grab these packs before they run out

Here is a summary of the pricing:

• ISO 14001 Do-It-Yourself training pack $300
• Latest Version forms and manual templates on an extra CD $60
• Draft version DVD of the entire training program videos to play on your computer $80
• Plus 10% GST  tax if you live in Australia.
• And you can choose to buy extra one-on-one coaching any time you want when you want it.

This is the way to make your business truly sustainable

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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Like nearly every other morning I was channel hopping while I ate my breakfast.  I like to go to a variety of news reports and I want to know what people are talking about.  The breakfast shows are a great mix for this but I am bored witless if I stick with just one of them.  The thing is that I need to be in charge of the remote – shared hopping is hard.

I caught a really interesting interview on ABC 2 with Dr James Hansen of Columbia University, an atmospheric physicist who has been studying global warming for many years.

I thought this was important to share because it is different to both extremes of political opinion in this country.

His firm opinion is that we need a price on carbon, or carbon tax and that this needs to rise over time with all the proceeds going to the public and to encourage alternative power generation.

He stated that emission trading is a tax that is merely pretending there is a solution and it will achieve nothing and would be very difficult to wind back.

If we have a carbon tax instead of an ETS, we still need the ability to count the carbon involved so the work some businesses are putting in at present will not be wasted.

The guy made so much sense.

One thing he said is that coal export is like “drug dealing’ to coal addicted countries.

He also discussed nuclear power and that was interesting.  Apparently the reactors that we all worry about are type 1 and 2 but the current nuclear reactors being built are type 3 which automatically detect problems and close down with no room for human error.  Type 4 reactors are under development and will run on the waste from earlier reactors so that there will be no waste to manage.

Would you feel more comfortable if the waste issue was fully resolved for nuclear power?  I know I would.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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The latest Australian electricity production models predict the following energy split by 2030: coal – 43%, gas – 37%, wind – 12%, hydro – 3.5%, geothermal – 1.5% and solar -1%.   This is from ABARE

Apparently the Federal government has also commissioned independent modeling of production prices for different generation sources for electricity.  The data has not been released but apparently the lowest cost is geothermal, “with nuclear, gas, and coal with carbon capture and storage beating all forms of solar”.   And all prices are higher than we are currently paying.

The Australian Solar Energy Society has rejected these findings, because they say the models ignore an expected 50% or more reduction in solar costs over the next 20 years.  This does seem as though it should be considered.

One of the problems with geothermal power in particular is transmission distances between geothermal sources and our current cities.  Electric transmission has huge inefficiencies.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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Could global warming run out of control?

Vast amounts of methane – which is 25 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide – are stored in the permafrost and scientists have long warned that, if it escapes as temperatures rise, it could greatly accelerate global warming.  But so far they have largely looked for this happening on land.

A new study, at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks has found what it describes as “a large but overlooked source of methane gas escaping from permafrost underwater”.

The researchers surveyed the waters above the 772,000 square mile East Siberian Arctic Shelf, north of Russia from 2003 to 2008 and found that some eight million tons of methane was escaping from it every year.  This is about the same as had previously been estimated to be released from all the world’s oceans.  And, the researchers also found that levels of methane in the air over the Arctic are higher than they have been for 400,000 years

Scientists had hoped the permafrost under the shelf would act as an impermeable barrier, sealing in the methane, but it is degrading because the water running down rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean is warmer than in the past.  The sea over the shelf is no more than 50 metres deep, so that the gas reaches the surface as methane, whereas in deeper water it oxidises on the way up turning into the less harmful CO2.

More study needs to be done to see how significant this is but it could turn out to be one more piece of evidence that the effects of climate change are becoming evident faster than anyone predicted.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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But since the advent of the internet, the whole idea of training has got so much easier for employers to cope with.  There is now a wide selection of courses available.

This type of training regime is a world away from previous methods and helps employers to keep their businesses running smoothly and efficiently during an employee’s training period.

Online training is a brilliant idea and it is all so easy to organise. It is convenient for employers, morale boosting for staff and far less expensive than you would think.

When clients in one of my group courses asked me for online training instead of travelling to workshops please I said yes, gulped hard and started to find out how to do it.  That was late 2004 and by 2005 I had online training up and running.

I enrolled in a wide range of different courses, mostly in marketing and internet management and all in the USA and spent the next 12-18 months getting up around 3am several days a week to fit US Eastern Time midday training sessions.

One course had a teleconference “Graduation Ceremony” with an academy awards style virtual red carpet walk.  I was asked by a “reporter” to describe my gown for the event which was white towelling over PJ’s and I was being careful to avoid any “wardrobe malfunctions”.

You will find that the 2010, Ver 7 result is a series of very successful, simple and effective training programs to help your business become sustainable as you identify and minimise your environmental, safety, customer satisfaction and other risks, build in a feedback loop and save your self time, money and hassle.  Many but not all my clients choose to become certified to internationally recognised standards like ISO 14001, ISO 9001 or AS/NSZ 4801

At last you can have online sustainability training!  This is a brilliant idea, easy to organise, convenient for employers, morale boosting for staff and saves you more than it costs.

You can discover just how easy it is when you join the online group starting at the end of March and be the first group using Version 7 which also includes videos as well as audios and PDF’d PowerPoint slides.  You are supported by a weekly coaching teleconference and email answers.  You can choose whether you want to do environmental, ISO 14001; quality or customer satisfaction – ISO 9001; occupational health and safety, AS/NZS 4801 or even an integrated system including more than one system.

Or you can even Do-It-Yourself with a choice of programs to suit your business.
Fax 61 (08) 8311 5233 or phone me 61 (08) 8311 5232 to make a time to discuss what would suit you best

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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Ok let’s face it we are all human and sometimes we make mistakes.  The person who never made a mistake never made anything and you don’t want them around.

The important thing is to admit you “stuffed up”, sort out why you did and fix it.  Be open and honest and don’t blame.

A very few scientists in the IPCC stuffed up, and tried to hide it.  Well that is plain stupid. An error is excusable – the lie is not.  It was found out when some emails were stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in the U.K.

The flow on from this has been ammunition for the climate change skeptics.  Pity about that because the science of climate change is strong and we need to all start doing something practical about it.

The mistake of exaggerating to make the case stronger has actually had the opposite effect as skeptics and ultra conservatives ignor the bulk of evidence and confuse the politics.

There is no doubt regarding the following key points:
The global climate is changing.
Human activities produce heat-trapping gases.
Heat-trapping gases are very likely responsible for most of the warming observed over the past half century.
The higher the levels of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, the higher the risk of potentially dangerous consequences for humans and our environment.

The national academies of science of 32 nations, and every major scientific organization in the United States whose members include climate experts, have issued statements endorsing these points.

You must have been reading the news reports describing the stolen e-mails from climate scientists and the errors in the IPCC reports.  Some aspects of climate change impacts have been overstated, but this does not undermine the conclusions that humans have taken over from nature as the dominant influence on our climate.

So why am I talking about this?

Do you know what happens in your business when a mistake happens?  Does it get reported and sorted out?  Or does it get covered up, ignored and repeated again and again.

Are your staff wasting time and money as mistakes get ignored and covered up but the errors go out the door, goods need reworking and your customers get upset.

You will discover that the really big benefit of having an ISO management system in your business is a simple and effective feedback system plus a culture of admitting mistakes and sorting out how to prevent them.

It does not matter whether you are doing ISO 14001 or ISO 9001, when you build a management system; you build a feedback system and culture of admitting and correcting mistakes.

I know some of you worry that this will increase your red tape but this idea is wrong!

I keep it really simple and use communication forms instead of non-conformance or corrective action forms.

I discovered that more people use them when they have a “friendlier” name.  A fisherman sorted me out on that one around twelve years ago when he asked “what the **** is a non conformance form”.  I have called them communication forms and found that really works, ever since.

For more information on how I can help you reduce mistakes and change the culture in your business, go to www.enviroaction.com.au

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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I was in Brisbane last weekend and while I was there I heard about a very large WorkCover claim.  This was a building industry union official who contracted skin cancer and received a record financial claim.

This should not be a surprise because the bronzed Aussie is a careless of his health Aussie.

We have been having cover up and slip slop slap messages for several years now.  Twelve years ago when I was working in the fishing industry in Port Lincoln the guys were all issued with long sleeved shirts, broad brimmed hats, soft broad brim add-ons for hard hats and huge jars of sunburn cream.

I remember visiting prawn farms in Queensland and seeing the guys rushing about on quad bikes in only a pair of small “stubbies” and even bare foot.  I was told that it was too hot and too hard to get them to wear anything more.

I was amazed as it is often hotter in South Australia in summer and the lack of shoes is plain stupid on a worksite and skin cancer has been known about for years.

Hopefully this huge claim will scare employers into enforcing sun smart behaviour.

We have seen the results of management failure to enforce safety procedures and training with the insulation scandal and this is just another case of ignoring known safety hazards and paying for it.

Occupational health and safety is the responsibility of individuals to comply with the rules, work mates to look out for each other and employers to enforce a safe working environment

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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As I child my father often moved which meant that I went to six different schools in different states and even countries.

From the age of nine when the moving started, I found that I was good at writing the lists and organising the packing for moves and holidays because my mother found it all very stressful.  So in effect I have been developing management systems since childhood.

Learning to work with systems plus living in so many different places produced a very adaptable, lateral thinking person who can fit into a wide range of environments and as a consultant; it means I work effectively with clients from a very wide range of industries.

I guess thinking very laterally enabled me to move away from the typical consultancy model that left clients dependent on the consultant.

I developed training programs to enable clients to have their OWN management systems and to manage them without ongoing consultant overheads.

Then, because clients asked, I developed ONLINE TRAINING PROGRAMS that allow busy businesses to access my help WHERE THEY ARE regardless of geography and only have a one hour per week fixed time commitment.

When you build a simple system you reduce waste, you save money, save time, reduce stress, you help the environment.  This is what sustainability is all about and if it is not simple it won’t work.

AND this is what I help you to do in your business.

You can reserve a place in the next online group course, or even Do-It-Yourself.

Both will get you ready for certification if you implement the simple and effective training and templates that I give you.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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The federal government’s planned emissions trading scheme is now on the parliamentary backburner after the Senate on Wednesday refused to debate the draft laws until May.

I think this is wise because the current proposed scheme gives too much to the polluters and apparently ignores small business among other flaws.

The evidence around the world is that carbon pricing works in the long term

What we need are incentives to waste less energy for investment into renewable energy.

I am not convinced that nuclear energy is the way to go because it builds up yet another form of pollution for future generations to cope with, it takes a long time to implement and it is very carbon intensive to set up.

We need our leaders to rationally discuss how to find the least economically disruptive and fairest possible way to ensure our way of life against the risks of climate change.

We need sufficient incentives for businesses and consumers to change their behaviour in a way that can de-link economic growth from emissions levels, and in an acceptably fair way.

This problem will not be solved with political posturing and televised temper tantrums.

There is a definite global trend emerging and that is: mandatory action so we cannot do the ostrich thing and bury our heads in the sand nor can we have leaders turning into robotic and expressionless creatures repeating the same word-perfect nonsense again and again

27 European Union member states have had emissions trading since 2005, and New Zealand will start one in July this year. Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, 16 US states and four Canadian provinces, and even the US congress, are at various stages of legislating their own cap-and-trade schemes. The Norwegians and Swedes (and the French, Irish and Spanish soon will) have direct carbon taxes for certain economic sectors not covered by the EU’s ETS.

I think that the Coalition’s stand is buying us time to have rational debate but we will need a price penalty to give a firm incentive.  We do need to be flexible, prepared to learn from mistakes and get the policy design right to create incentives for those long-term structural changes.

Recent studies of the EU ETS, suggest that despite some significant flaws in the way the ETS was initially designed, the evidence points to the following conclusions.
1.    The trial phase did significantly reduce emissions.
2.    The trial phase highlighted the importance of government initially auctioning emissions permits to industry. The study noted that where big business received free permits, they gained windfall profits. They reap a reward for no abatement from the free allocation.
3.    Auctioning a high proportion of permits also allows government to realise a double dividend with the revenue. Other taxes can be removed; deficits reduced; workers in strongly affected industries can be compensated and retrained; and public investments in complimentary emissions reductions that are not suitable for carbon pricing can be made.

Europe is in the process of shifting to auctioning of permits for all but those industries exposed to international competition.

The Australian proposed carbon reduction pollution scheme, does propose to start with full auctioning to all but trade-exposed industry and, for some dubious reason some power generators.

We do need to be flexible, prepared to learn from mistakes and get the policy design right to create incentives for those long-term structural changes.

The emerging evidence from the European Union, the lessons from economic theory, not to mention the global policy trend, is that carbon pricing is an indispensable pillar of equitable, effective and economically responsible climate policy for the long term.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon says believes the best way to tackle emissions is through an ETS but it needs to be an efficient scheme with a higher target and believe we could achieve 15 per cent for the same price as the Government’s five per cent cuts.

At present there is a carbon policy vacuum in Canberra.  A recent survey of CEOs shows that business is looking for direction.

Increasingly in Canberra, more intelligent ministers understand that Labour’s emissions trading scheme smells a bit like the insulation scheme in the list of government disasters.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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One of the large TAFE colleges is now using my ISO 14001 training materials under licence so I recently spent time training the trainers and found this a very valuable experience.  It was great to see what I do through the eyes of other trainers and understand their needs.

The result is some minor extra tweaks to the new version I am releasing this month plus optional videos of the entire program.

I have split some of the sessions where there was more work for you so that you now have an extra week to cover those tasks, giving you five weeks in each module and an extra coaching session is now built in.

This will make getting ISO 14001 and the other management systems like safety and quality even easier for you.  That is part of my continual improvement program.  Version 1 was launched by the then Minister for the Environment, Dr David Kemp, in 2003.  In 2010, I am releasing Version 7 so I guess this is a steady annual review and upgrade based on current trends in business, client and my own audit results and the response of clients during the coaching sessions.

You now have three FIVE week online training modules instead of the four week ones.  There is no more to do but it is spaced so that it is easier for you to manage while you also do all the other things you are already doing full time.

Plus you will have access to streaming videos for each session so that you get:
•    PowerPoint slides
•    MP3 Audio files that you can listen to while commuting or even driving a tractor
•    Videos which combine the PowerPoint slides and the audio into a single presentation
•    Plus of course you get all the simple and flexible templates you need
•    AND a weekly phone conference so that you can get your questions answered

This caters for almost all the learning styles and allows people to fit their training and coaching into their busy lifestyles.  Version 7 makes getting your certification even easier.

The next group starts at the end of March and

YES – you can enrol for any of the systems or even for more than one.  Different choices are enrolled in different materials of course.  Because many of the sessions overlap these are coached as a full group and where your course varies, you will have individual coaching calls.

You can also choose to get started with the Do-it-Yourself programs, which are the same training materials as the coached courses but without the weekly coaching and mentoring.  Some people choose to start with this, then upgrade to the fully coached course, or book in for a few 30 minute coaching calls.  The Do-It Yourself training with an 8 CD pack is available for environment ISO 14001, safety AS/NZS 4801 and also quality ISO 9001.

I do some private consultancy for selected clients but obviously this is more costly and although you have my undivided attention, you miss out on the real benefits to working in a group where you have others who all contribute a variety of experiences and enrich your knowledge.

envirojean

Save Money with Simple and Effective Management Systems

Jean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.

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