| What is Envirostep? | Envirostep is an entry level environmental management tool. It was developed by the Ministry of Economic Development to help businesses to understand, improve and communicate their environmental performance and achieve benefits for their business at the same time. The main elements of Envirostep are a self-assessment questionnaire, a performance report, an action plan and comprehensive links to other websites. |
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| How can Envirostep help my business? | Envirostep will help businesses to identify potential savings, risk exposures and business opportunities. It will also help them to understand and improve their environmental performance. |
| Why should I use Envirostep? | Completing the assessment questionnaire will give you a good understanding of the environmental issues and opportunities at your site. If you carry out the recommended actions provided you may be able to save money and improve your environmental performance. |
| Why was Envirostep developed? | To provide small businesses in NZ with a free to use, basic, credible tool to help them make cost savings and reduce their impact on the environment. |
| How was Envirostep developed? | Envirostep was developed by the Ministry of Economic Development in consultation with a number of recognised organisations that help business to improve their environmental performance. Its content has been reviewed by a panel of experts, and it went through a successful pilot release involving 40 businesses around New Zealand. |
| Who has endorsed Envirostep? | Envirostep was launched by the Minister of Commerce, with formal endorsements from Business NZ and the Small Business Advisory Group. Other government agencies and environmental organisations indicate their endorsement for Envirostep by placing their logos on the home page |
| Who can use Envirostep? | Envirostep is available to anybody who has an email address and access to the internet. |
| How much does it cost to use Envirostep? | It is free to use. However, if you would like to have your Envirostep assessment checked by an auditor, there will be costs associated with auditor time, transport and certificate issue. |
| Are there any obligations? | Other than agreeing to its Terms and Conditions and accepting the Envirostep Privacy Policy, there are no obligations for users. |
| How many questions are there? | The number of questions you are asked depends upon the Environmental Commitment that you select during registration.
Starter: Up to 45 questionsImprover: Up to 88 questionsPerformer: Up to 119 questions |
| What do the questions cover? | The ten categories of the Envirostep assessment are energy, water, waste, transport, site, planning, compliance, operations, information and output. |
| Do I have to answer all the questions? | No. You may answer as many or as few questions as you like. However, each answer contributes to your final score so the more questions you answer, the greater your potential score. |
| What if I dont know the answer? | Select Dont know. If you need to ask someone else for information, make a note in the Comments box next to the appropriate question to remind you. When you know the answer you can amend your response. |
| What if the question is not relevant to my business? | Select Not Applicable. This will not reduce your score. |
| How long does the assessment take? | Most businesses find they can complete the assessment within 30 minutes. |
| How do I save my answers? | Your answers are automatically saved, so you can exit at any time and then resume where you left off. |
| Is my information confidential? | All of your information will remain confidential to you unless you choose to share it with someone else, such as when you select a module. The Envirostep Administrator will have access to your account in case you need help. All user scores contribute (anonymously) to the national average. See our Privacy Policy for further details. |
| Can somebody answer the questions for me? | Yes, you can invite others to answer the questions for your site. Simply click on Invite user in the Site profile tab and enter their email address. |
| Who set the questions? | Questions were developed by key New Zealand organisations involved in improving business environmental performance (including Ministry of Transport, Automobile Association, NZ Transport Agency, Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority, Environmental Risk Management Authority, WaterNZ and WasteMINZ). |
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| How is the score calculated? | Each possible answer has a weighting, which contributes to the final score. |
| Do all answers have the same value? | No. Each question and category of questions has a weighting which corresponds to its environmental significance. |
| What are modules? | Modules are categories of additional questions which have more detail about specific themes, and can be public or private. Public modules are available to all Envirostep users, while private modules are restricted to invitees of the module owner. The module owner can view the scores of those using their module. Users are not identifiable to the owners of public modules, but the owners of private modules can identify participating businesses. |
| How were the weightings developed? | Weightings were assigned by an Evaluation Panel, comprising recognised experts in business environmental management, from the Ministry of Economic Development, Ministry for the Environment, Small Business Advisory Group, Business NZ, Massey University Centre for SME Research, Tonkin & Taylor, Landcare Research, Sustainability by Design and Weltec. Question weightings were defined using 1000minds decision support software, to ensure they are reliable and defensible. |
| What does the report tell me? | When you have completed your assessment, you will have a report containing your score, profile, comparison, trend, recommendations and links to relevant web resources. |
| What can I do with my Envirostep score? | Your score indicates your current environmental performance, and your position relative to the national average. If you update the assessment questionnaire periodically, you will also be able to see how your performance changes over time. |
| What is a good score? | A good score is one which gets better over time (which indicates improving performance); one which indicates that you are performing well (in comparison to others), or one which exceeds your expectations. A 100% score does not mean that your environmental performance is perfect, as Envirostep is a generic, entry level tool which cannot assess site-specific environmental conditions and compliance requirements. |
| Does a good compliance score mean I meet all regulatory compliance requirements? | No, the self-assessment does not directly assess your compliance with specific environmental regulatory requirements. You should contact the appropriate authorities to assess your specific compliance requirements and status. |
| How can I improve my score? | You can improve your overall score if you do one or more of the recommended improvement actions presented in the report, then update the answers in your questionnaire. |
| Why have scores for Environmental Performance and Environmental Management? | Your Environmental Performance score indicates your current level of achievement, while your Environmental Management score indicates whether you have the necessary procedures in place to sustain or improve this achievement. A poor environmental management score is likely to result in a declining environmental performance score over time. |
| What should I do with my Envirostep recommendations? | The more recommended actions you implement, the more you will improve your environmental performance. By updating your Envirostep assessment once you have completed these actions, you will also improve your Envirostep score. Your recommendations can also be uploaded into the Action Plan in Envirostep. This allows you to plan, prioritise, programme and monitor the necessary actions. |
| Can I just use the Action Plan? | Yes, you can enter your own site-specific issues and actions into the Action Plan. |
| How often should I update my Envirostep assessment? | It is recommended you update your assessment questionnaire quarterly, or at least annually, so that you can keep a track of your improvements. |
| Can I trust the results? | A lot of effort has been put into making sure the questions and weightings used in Envirostep are appropriate. However, as with any self-assessment, the results are only as good as the answers provided. |
| Do I have to get my score certified? | No, you are not required to have your score certified. However, you should not make environmental claims or trade on an Envirostep score unless it has been independently validated (i.e. audited and certified as correct). |
| Is Envirostep the only tool I need? | Businesses that have a low impact upon the environment may find that Envirostep satisfies their environmental management needs. However, businesses with specific or significant environmental issues/opportunities may need to use more sophisticated environmental management tools or schemes. |
| How does Envirostep compare to other environmental management tools and schemes? | Envirostep is one of the most basic environmental management tools available to businesses in New Zealand. There are many more sophisticated tools available; however there is typically a cost for their use. Other Environmental Management tools and schemes are listed in the section of this website, which can be found on the Other Resources page in the Envirostep User Guide. |
| Can Envirostep be used by larger organisations? | Yes, businesses may use Envirostep to monitor the performance of their branches/other sites and/or suppliers. Sector/industry bodies may also tailor Envirostep to their needs. If you would like to find out more about this please contact the Ministry of Economic Development via the feedback link. |
| Is Envirostep an Environmental Management System (EMS)? | Envirostep is a basic EMS, as it helps users to systematically measure, plan and improve their environmental performance. Although Envirostep is consistent with most requirements of the ISO14001 standard for EMS, it does not include the documentation, calibration and non-conformance procedures. As such, full conformance with Envirostep does not mean that users would also conform with ISO 14001 (although they should easily be able to do so). |
| Is Envirostep an ecolabel? | No. Envirostep is an assessment tool for measuring an organisations environmental performance, and the Envirostep logo cannot be used on a product. An ecolabel is a seal or logo awarded by a third party to indicate that a product, service or company has met a set of environmental and/or social standards. |
| Is Envirostep a sustainability assessment tool? | No, Envirostep deals solely with the environment aspects of an organisation, and does not include social and financial aspects. However, Envirostep can be used to represent the environmental part of a sustainability assessment. |
| Who owns the intellectual property for Envirostep? | The Crown owns the intellectual property rights for the Envirostep tool, and the trademark for the Envirostep name and logo. This is administered via the Ministry of Economic Development. |
| Can I use the Envirostep logo? | The Envirostep logo cannot be used by other parties without permission from the Crown, although holders of a valid Envirostep certificate can use the certificate to communicte their environmental performance to others.. |
| How is Envirostep maintained? | The Ministry of Economic Development is responsible for hosting, maintaining, developing and promoting Envirostep. |
| Do public sector procurers recognise Envirostep? | Public sector procurers do not currently require suppliers to have completed an Envirostep assessment.However, government procurers encourage suppliers to use Envirostep and other tools as a way of managing their environmental performance. |
| What are the software platform & system requirements for Envirostep? | A backend database supports the creation of custom questionaires and the front-end web-based application. The web application is written in Microsoft C# using the ASP.NET MVC web framework.
System requirements are as follows: IIS 7 (requiring Windows Server 2008 or later).NET 3.5 SP1SQL Server 2005 or 2008 |
| Can I request an audit if I have not completed the questionnaire? | No, you can only request an audit once all questions have been answered. |
| Who can audit my completed questionnaire? | There are a number of approved auditors around the country, as listed in the Information section. |
| How long does an audit take? | If all evidence were available, an auditor could complete their audit during a 2-3 hour site visit. However, if evidence is not available, it can take much longer. Auditors will allow a site up to 1 month to provide evidence, after which the audit will be closed. |