October 2007

ISO 14001 Document Review and Initial Visit

The company principal has carried out a witnessed ISO 14001 Document Review and Initial Visit at two large printing plants in the West Country. The Initial certification visit, to be carried out by the principal, is scheduled for late-November.

September 2007

Auditing Statistics Q1 to Q3 2007

By the end of Quarter 3 2007 the company had been engaged in visits to 26 sites to conduct ISO 14001 certification audits. In addition in-house compliance assurance auditing support had been provided at 7 manufacturing and overhaul sites and 4 Phase I due diligence audits had been carried out with one involving a Phase II investigation.

October 2007

EMS Awareness Raising Workshop Sequence Completed

Following completion of the W&S Recycling Environmental Programme in Summer 2007 a series of three EMS workshops was designed and presented with senior managers first in early-September, followed by site managers in early-October and internal auditors in late-October. An employee Environmental Handbook and a computer-based EMS Induction Tool were launched in October 2007.

March 2006

ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Training Course

The company's principal attended a one-week interactive ISO 9001 Quality Management System training course presented by DNV Certification in Greenwich in early-March 2006. A post-course examination was successfully passed. Attendance at such a course is a necessary step in the two-year process for the company principal to become IRCA (www.irca.org) certificated.

April 2005

Phase I/II Netherlands

A pre-acquisition environmental site assessment has been commissioned by US-based TSCI for a property located near Amsterdam in The Netherlands. In addition to the Phase I process the project will involve the taking of a small number of soil and groundwater samples for chemical analysis.

Samples were shipped to the UK for chemical analysis at an ISO17025 certified laboratory. A Tier 1 Risk Assessment was conducted on the results using the Dutch Target Values and Intervention Values for soil remediation.

April 2005

Next Steps for the marketing of the E Quest Audit Tool in the UK

The company has initiated discussions with Eco Systems in The Netherlands to agree terms for the marketing in the UK of the Off-Line E Quest Audit Tool following the successful release of Version 1. The tool is routine use by auditors from the waste management group at Oxfordshire County Council responsible for improving the efficiency and performance at the County’s 8 waste recycling centres. A meeting in The Netherlands has been scheduled for the end of April 2005.

March and August 2005

4th and 5th Workshops on the Iraq Building Environmental Governance ESA project

The 4th and 5th Workshops on the UNEP capacity building programme on Environmental Site Assessment in Iraq took place in Amman in mid-March and late-August. The principal objective was to amass all available information, video clips and images from the 5 pilot sites (including a looted pesticide distribution warehouse and a former small arms factory) to allow Sampling and Analysis Plans to be developed and agreed. Teams for each site are now taking shallow soils and water samples for submission to an ex-country contracted commercial laboratory. A workshop to introduce quantitative risk assessment and to develop initial remedial programmes for the 5 sites took place in Amman in late-August 2005. A proposal to implement remedial actions at 2 of the most contaminated of the 5 pilot sites has been approved in September 2005 with clean-up scheduled for completion by early-2006.

March to September 2005

Oxfordshire County Council landfill performance audits kicks off for 2005

The OCC landfill performance audit process for 2005 started for the Dix Pit Landfill with a site visit to assess the impact of new documentation on the methodology. The site was issued with an IPPC permit in October 2004 and the Site Management System has been introduced. The permit replaces the former waste management licence and the SMS replaces the former Working Plan. The site has introduced gas power generation plant which export electricity into the National Grid since the May 2004 audit. The Audit Findings meeting took place in late-September 2005.

February 2005

Tsunami Disaster Task Force meeting in Geneva

We attended the first meeting of the UNEP Tsunami Disaster Task Force technical meeting on debris management in the majority of the affected countries in the region which was held in Geneva in mid-February 2005. The meeting was attended by representatives of many agencies operating in the region including WHO, UNDP, UNICEF and OCHA as well as UNEP. A Tsunami Waste Management Strategy was proposed to ensure coordinated and pragmatic responses to the waste problem and to introduce sustainable waste management strategies into emerging redevelopment plans for affected countries.

February 2005

GVH Environmental initiate a major rebranding programme

GVH Environmental have embarked upon a programme to rebrand the organization before launching their much awaited marketing initiative in the UK. A fresh new logo and look and its application to the company website have been commissioned from designers. Results are expected by late-spring.

Newsletter No 6 for 2005 - Newsletter No 5 for 2004 - Newsletter No 4 for 2002

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