Lincoln made sure that all employees took part in its environmental audit right from the beginning.
A team, composed of two representatives of management and of the works council, accompanied the whole auditing process. Environmental circles were set up to discuss questions related to energy, raw materials, waste reduction, substitution of dangerous substances, etc.
Different types of staff participation and information have been put in place and tested:
- informing employees about the status, progress and current results of environmental management, as well as providing them with the necessary basic information
- providing advice and hints on environmental management with pay slips
- providing Turkish employees with an information sheet in their language
- posting notices on the bulletin board and information panels of different production groups
- putting up posters about the environmental audit in the entrance hall, production department, canteen, training centre, employee offices, machinery area, etc.
- presenting the actual status and further development of environmental projects at quarterly works meeting
- publishing articles in the company magazine, The Lincoln Journal
- organising workshops on the environmental audit for staff
The environmental team
The environmental team met between six to eight times per year in the past years. The central topics of discussion included:
- the preparation of direct and indirect environmental aspects
- the revision of the environmental management handbook
- the preparation of the simplified environmental impact statements for 2001 and 2002
- the conduct of workshops for the environmental spokespersons and the environmental circles
- the preparation of the audit and training plans
- the conduct of environmental days
- the development of criteria for the Lincoln environmental prize
- the conduct of auditor workshops
- the preparation for the environmental external audits
The environmental spokespersons
The environmental spokespersons provide the liaison between the environmental team and the production and administrative groups. They represent, on the one hand, the environmental interests of the groups to external persons or organisations, but primarily serve as the contact partners for the environmental team to pass on information to the colleagues of the spokespersons. In order to prepare and conduct their work in the groups, workshops were held annually for all environmental spokespersons. These workshops inform the spokespersons about subjects such as the changes to the environmental management handbook, their rights and obligations, the structure of the environmental management at Lincoln and the revision of the environmental policies.
The environmental circles
The environmental circles at Lincoln are employed to solve certain problems. In the past years, three circles have met and dealt with topics including packaging, production and reduction as well as the saving of resources and transport. They made suggestion for the new environmental program for 2003. Their considerations ranged from the expansion of the returnable system to the development of a regenerative workshop for the reduction of products and the use of building heat to produce hot water as well as the construction of a photovoltaic system on the roof of the factory building.
