Waste Management

It really isn't rocket science taking responsibility for your own waste. Just start by making a list of everything in your life - car, home, office - and schedule time for maintenance, repairs, upgrades and conversions. Waste not Want not my grandmother always said - see how you can minimise your waste and reuse somewhere else.

Pollution Management

Be dilligent and minimise your waste through our Water Ways.
Instead of flushing old food scraps, bury in your compost heap.
Clean your Air Conditioning units each month to minimise air pollution inside. Only use when really truly needed.
Look at the air pollution emitted from you car, research more eco friendly options.

Stormwater Management

Keep your Footpath and Gutters Free of Litter
Instead of hosing of outdoor areas into gutter or drain try sweeping.
Keep all drains clear of litter - create a monthly schedule to maintain.
Recycle the swept rubbish like leaves and twigs etc into garden or general rubbish into the recyclable bin
Ensure all yards, parking areas and rooves have drainage and systems in place to direct the rain into the stormwater system and not the sewer.
All waste and material to be disposed of or stored in covered area.

Energy Management

Install Air Conditioning Thermostats and check and maintain regularly
Switch Off Stand By Power at the end of every day
Use Energy Efficient Products - whitegoods, sound and vision equipment
Install Insulation in the Roof

RRRRR Plan

The five Rs are our new religion - ooh that would make it six! :-)
Seriously - Recycle, Repair, Reuse, Renew and Reduce

These five little words can save you money, save energy and save resources.

If you are into money, you have a savings plan and are careful with you spending.
Sit down and look at your life and see where you can apply the RRRRRs and create your own Life Savings plan.

Here are some ideas to get you started!

Car use – reduce your usage and increase passengers
Domestic Travel – reduce flights to four times per annum
Dual Toilet Flushers
Eat what you buy, don’t waste it!
Energy – use a renewable source
Garden – rainwater or grey water tanks
Go organic, when shopping and gardening
Grow your own
House – have number of rooms to match number of people
New Clothing – reduce purchase to once a month
Overseas Travel – reduce to once every 2 years
Plant Australian natives and Succulent desert plants to save water
Reduce animal products in your diet
Shop locally
Eat slow foods
Temperature – reduce cooling and heating number of rooms and time
Water Efficient Shower Heads
Whitegoods – decrease number; reduce usage and share with others

Water Efficiency

Remember we will always have what we need.
It may be in another form.
You neither gain nor lose anything.
Value your water, appreciate it and manage its use and you get more out of it.

Avoiding watering gardens on windy days;
Clean paths by sweeping
Fix leaks as soon as they happen or as soon as they are recognised.
Install water efficient equipment.
Monitor water usage.
Read the water meter.
Reduce water use in the work kitchen.
Recycle water
Reduce unnecessary water usage.
Use recycled or rain water where possible.
Install a Rain Water Tank.
Water gardens during the coolest part of the day
Watering trees and shrubs, which have deep root systems less weekly

Smoking and Cigarette Butts

Our business lives in a tiny heritage cottage in the inner city of Brisbane. Half our staff are smokers and take regular breaks to go outside and puff out their frustrations.

Smoking is their personal choice and as we all know there are rules to minimise the affect of passive smoke on the general public so our smokers go outside into the garden for their breaks. They have their own personal sealed glass jars where they are responsible to dispose their cigarette butts in a sealed glass jar and place in a bin.

Cigarette butts are not biodegradable.
The acetate (plastic) filters can take many years to decompose.

Some of the environmental impacts of cigarette butts:

When it rains, cigarette butts lying in our streets and gutters are carried via stormwater directly into our harbours, beaches and rivers.
The chemicals contained in these butts and the butts themselves impact on our water quality and can be deadly to marine life.
Flicked butts can cause fires.
When thrown from a motor vehicle into dried grass, butts can start a grassfire or even a bushfire.
Cigarette butts can take up to 12 months to break down in freshwater and up to 5 uears to break down in seawater.
Littered butts seriously reduce the aesthetic quality of any environment.
Butts have been found in the stomachs of young birds, sea turtles and other marine creatures.

So if you are a smoker, please consider all of these consequences and dispose of your butts responsibily.

Neighbourhood Impact Management

Sometimes the greatest security your home can have is a neighbour. The appreciation of the people that live in your neighbourhood may be realised in a time of great need.

So we suggest the following Neighbourhood Practice: Consider, Create a Contingency Plan, Factor in Worse Case Scenarios and Maintain Communication.

Consider the noise in your neighbourhood. Mowing, drilling, building, sawing, playing loud music, holding large noisy parties before 10am or after 10pm - can really impact on a neighbour's wellbeing.

Consider the parking impact on your Neighbourhood. Visitors, Party Guests, Tradespeople or teenage children adding extra cars to your 2 car household can all at times overflow onto your neighbours space.

Consider the parking impact on your Neighbourhood. You may work in a tiny little street in the inner city where cars are lined up and down both sides of the street with barely enough room to move. Take the bus, park a few blocks away and walk - the exercise wouldnt hurt. Plan client meetings for a local cafe. Create alternatives and get creative!

Consider creating a community in your Neighbourhood. Become a Safe House, Hold street Parties, introduce yourself, look out for each other, establish a pet feeding or walking service, hold gardening BBQs and help out elderley or ill neighbours with daily chores. Look after your neighbours mail, garden and pets while they are away. Ask your neighbours about the history of your street and your neighbourhood and create a history book for your local library.



Value and appreciate your neighbourhood as it is and it will become what you want!

Reduction of Green House Emissions

Our small business encourages all staff to reduce annual individual car kilometres to
8000 kms Per week
this means 154 kms Per day
this means 22 kms

We suggest you calculate kms to office from your home
Calculate kms to gigs from your home and the office

Go to http://www.whereis.com.au/Get Directions – add to and from addresses.
It will show you KM and Time

Plan ahead to reduce time and mileage

Catch Public Transport a couple of days each week

http://www.translink.com.au/

Set up a Remote Office, create a compliance enterprise standard with measureable targets so your staff can work from home a couple of days each week. Save resources in the office and in the environment. (Make sure you have good benchmarks and check lists to monitor time management and production efficiency!)

Push the Earth at Home

Effective Resource Management begins at home. Those of us who have spent quality time growing up with grandparents have been instilled with their values of Waste not Want not and can pass these onto our children. Turn your home resource management into a fun household chore for your children!

Reduce Waste when Shopping:

Take your own bags or shopping basket to reduce use of plastic bags.
Keep them in the boot of your car - have a checklist in the car and on the fridge to remind you!
Buy your fresh food and vegetables loose, avoid the use of freezer bags in your supermarket.
Avoid pre-packaged fresh foods.
Reduce packaging - buy some items in bulk.
Buy concentrated products - Cleaning, Washing etc.
Only buy the fresh food that you need. Start going to the Green Grocer every couple of days - on your way home, walk to a local shop - incorporate into your daily routine to minimise time and fuel useage.

In the Bathroom

Avoid flushing the toilet unnecessarily. You know the story about Mellow Yellow.......
Install an AAA-rated showerhead
Install an AAA-rated toilets and save 67% less water than a standard single flush toilet.
Take a shallow bath instead of a shower every so often.
Take a bath with your partner and save water :-)

Around the Home

Installing water efficient taps or tap aerators is a great, inexpensive way to cut your water usage
Ensure your hot water pipes are insulated.
This will avoid wasting water while waiting for the hot water to flow through.
Always replace leaking washers and turn taps off gently to make the washers last longer.
Remember, one leaking tap can waste 2,000 litres a month!
Verify that your home is leak free, because many homes have hidden water leaks.
Read your water meter before and after a two hour period when no water is being used.
If the meter does not read exactly the same, there is a leak.

Community Involvement

We are an Entertainment Agency/Event Management/Publicist/Project Management Service/Business Consultation company based in Brisbane, Qld, Australia. Our clients live and work all over the Earth. Technology enables us to work with Global Communities.

We seek to create a world around us where the mundane returns to the sacred by gardening, nurturing, cooking and healing. In doing so, our primary focus is on the Education process for nutrition, preservation, farming, regeneration and preparation of the fruits from the earth while still creating opportunities for creative expression.

The Earth is our Business.

In every business we need first and foremost - a cause.
We need to show a profit in order to reinvest back into.
To do this we require an infrastructure, plans, resources, training, systems, feedback mechanisms and someone to manage it all and keep an eye on everything.

The Earth is a Business and we MEAN Business.

Business begins with a community of staff. In our business we observe thePush the Earth Policy and Practices creation, implementation and education. This extends to how we manage our work environments and ultimately our households with activities like:

At Home and in the Office

RRRRR Centre
Garden Patch at home and in the office
Push Health and Fitness (Push Your Ass Up That Hill! - lunchtime walks/fitness)

Industry Resource Reduction Plan
We have also invited our Clients to join us by offering alternative business practices using our Industry Resource Reduction Plan (Office, Venues, Events and Artists)

Community Events and Training Programs

We have also created Community Events and Training Programs such as:

Worth The Push To Hug (Global Hug Days)
Sustainable Earth Festivals
The Rock Star Seminars: Pushing Your Worth
How Good Is This Seminars: The Business of Your Life

Our Future

Push The Earth Vision Maps include planning for:

Community Farms
Community Seed Banks
Local Currencies - Bartering
Local Infrastructure

We encourage everyone to mean Business when it comes to our Earth.

Humanity: Eco Footprint To Do List

A dynamic exists in every entity. Nature will naturally balance this.
On this side of the planet it is day. On the other side of the planet it is night.

In your Relationship, there is a dynamic. In your Family, there is a dynamic.
In your Workplace, there is a dynamic. In your Community, there is a dynamic.
In your City, there is a dynamic. In your Country, there is a dynamic.
In your Earth, there is a dynamic. In your Galaxy, there is a dynamic.
In your Body, there is a dynamic. In your Mind, there is a dynamic.
In your Heart, there is a dynamic. In your Soul, there is a dynamic.

What the many repress the select express. What ONE represses, the other will express.
CAUSE = EFFECT in Space and Time.

Theologica Aristotelis - Aristotle's Essays on Ethics and Metaphysics holds the premise that in life there is an order where nothing is missing. Dr John F Demartini bases his philosophy on this concept - nothing is missing - it is in a different form.

In this age of climate change, green living and sustainability, this may be a concept that doesnt seem to fit easily. However if you look closely, this is what sustainable is ACTUALLY all about.

Living in balance.
Living in appreciation.

So before we look at the Earth - lets draw an analogy to the human body - when it is under stress, it is balancing de generation and the 12 different systems (eg Circulatory, Digestive, Endocrine, Muscular, Nervous etc) will take over from each other in order to keep the body alive - the pancreas may take over from the stomach to aid digestion in turn liver and adrenal rebalancing in order to maintain survival. There is always a cost in this balancing and eventually the body system will require a quasi "reboot" nutrtitionally to get it back on track.

Similarly, our Earth, like our human bodies, is in the process of balancing a de generation of sorts. Aristotle says "Nothing is Missing and the balance WILL be conserved". Like our human body, this conservation process will incur a cost to our different Systems (eg Natural, Ecological, Chemical, Geological, Physics etc) and be expressed across Regions (Polar, Temperate, Tropics, Sub Tropics) and Seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter) in various Cycles (eg Biological, Agricultural, Astronmonical, Time, Climate, Electromagnetic, Mythical and Cultural).

Everything that we do on this Earth - swills around in our Eco Footprint. If we can appreciate and understand how the Earth systems actually work, we can begin to manage our own Eco Footprint to minimise the cost somewhat. This is where the "attitude of gratitude" where we appreciate our Earth resources - will truly add value to our Earth and ultimately our lives.

In a very basic sense, what we choose to eat really can have some major environmental consequences. We’re often not aware of the energy, water and materials that go into producing items like a chocolate bar, soft drink or packet of chips - not to mention the fuel burnt to get these things to you.

Simple, unprocessed foods require much less energy and water.
Food is actually the biggest part of our personal eco-footprint (the land area needed to support a person’s lifestyle). Animal products make up 34% of our footprint - and that’s mainly red meat and dairy foods – while vegetable foods make up a further 8%.

We need our gardens to be in harmony with the natural environment.
This means not using too much water on the garden and choosing drought-resistant native plants and lawns. Combine that with keeping our gardens chemical free and growing more Australian plants to provide habitat for native animals, and we can really make a difference.

When you look at you body, you know how very important it is to balance all the systems through nutrition and excercise and a healthy balance between the seven areas of life.

When you look at our earth, you know how very important it is to balance all the systems through appreciation and value of resource for a healthy balanced expression in the continuous Cycles of life.

Earth Smart Business Practice: General Office

We choose to work with companies that are sustainable with a long term vision for our Earth.
We no longer use cardboard business cards.
We recommend the use of companies like MOSHTIX (www.moshtix.com.au) where the general public can purchase a MOSHCARD and stop the practice of printing hard tickets for events.
We collect cardboard boxes for recycling and place into Recycling bin
We reuse old binders, file folders, report covers and general office equipment.
We recycle plastic bottles, aluminium cans, tin cans, milk and juice cartons
Turn off computers, when not in use;
Turn off office lighting when not in use;
Activate sleep mode on each computer to switch off the screen after 10 minutes;
Switch off office equipment at night, when leaving the office.
Bring own mug to work and have some set aside for visitors;
Bring lunch from home or eat in a local café to avoid packaging waste generated by take away lunches.
We no longer use a kettle as the coffee maker produces specific amounts of hot water to reduce wastage.
We order supplies in bulk to minimise packaging waste
We reduce energy costs by only purchasing the most energy efficient equipment
We reuse old supplies + equipment, or donate or sell them to schools + charities etc
We recycle office equipment by sending photocopier and printer cartridges and printer ribbons to a remanufacturing firm for recycling.
When purchasing office supplies, we decline Plastic Bags
We have decreased our magazine purchases by half and donate them to schools + charities etc each month.
We no longer purchase newspapers and refer to the internet for news updates
We purchase reference books, establish a lending library and donate or sell annually
In the office kitchen, we use the minimum amount of dishwashing liquid when washing dishes therefore minimum rinsing which we do in as basin and then use this water on our garden.

Earth Operations - we practice what we preach

Our business is committed to appreciating our Earth resources by following these practices:

Regular Telecommuting for Staff
Laptops with remote access to emails and booking systems
On Call service for our clients outside office hours
Remote on line access for our Operating System, Aquarius.

DON’T PRINT
Use scrap paper for notes
Email dont post
Email dont fax
When printing from your computer, if you absolutely have to (are you sure you need to?)
print two pages per A4 page, if you have duplex printing, print on both sides of the page;
Only print when absolutely necessary; always offer to email instead

COMMUNICATIONS
All clients must have an email account.
We encourage written communication as much as possible to maintain a reliable audit trail.

SIGNING DOCUMENTS
We no longer print documents only to sign and fax then store. That costs time, paper and space. As we value all of those resources and dont consider them to be unlimited we do the following:
Our secure signatures are digitally attached to each document and returned via email or Internet download then digitally backed up.

PAYING BY CHEQUE
We don't pay be cheqye.
All payments are deposited directly into client bank accounts.
All remittances are emailed directly.
Ask clients to pay Directly Deposit into our Bank Account.
Ask them to email Remittance directly to Accounts.

PUBLICITY AND MARKETING
We will not accept printed publicity or marketing material or submissions.
We no longer file archive or store paper promo.
We accept and will store CDs.
They will be given away after 6 months
We will only keep EPKs for 12 months and then destroyed

By appreciating our resources, we use less space, less time, spend less money on stationary and can easily access files and information by building an infrstructure of Data Management Systems.

Making Choices

It has to start with YOU.

We have created a series of policies for our staff while they are at work.
Hopefully these will be taken home in some form.

Community Involvement
Earth Smart Business Practice
Energy Management
Neighbourhood Impact Management
Pollution Management
Humanity Policy:Eco Footprint To Do List
Smoking and Cigarette Butt Policy
Resource Management
Stormwater Management
Water Efficiency Policy
Human Value Transformation Policy