Environmental Performance - How do you stack up?

Many production nurseries are located in relative proximity to suburban areas. Once they were on the outskirts of towns and cities, many now find themselves in peri-urban and urban areas. This means the business’s environmental performance may be on show to more than just their workforce and the occasional on site delivery person or customer. There is an ever growing scrutiny on how natural resources are used, with community expectation on proactive environmental stewardship constantly increasing along with regulatory conditions including environmental duty of care.

EcoHort - Environmental Management System

For the last 14 years the nursery industry has operated an environmental management system (EMS) titled EcoHort. Functioning as part of the Australian Plant Production Standard (APPS) it sits beside NIASA accreditation as a tool for best management practice (BMP) and efficient business operation. EcoHort Certified businesses enjoy the benefits of a risk management oriented approach to natural resource management and environmental stewardship, coupled with comprehensive record keeping and third party audits. These businesses constantly monitor their environmental performance and have evidence of their commitment to continual improvement.

Managing natural resources just makes good business sense. Being part of a program like EcoHort provides a two-fold benefit. In the first instance, those operators who adopt the principles and processes have a record of their sound environmental performance. That extra scrutiny they are now under is eased with the confidence they are following industry BMP practices and adhering to established standards. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, EcoHort certified businesses are committed to efficient plant production under sustainable production principles.

Smart Farming Partnerships Project

Greenlife Industry Australia (GIA) has joined with Applied Horticultural Research, Hitachi, Freshcare, Growcom, AUSVEG, Australian Banana Growers Council, and Australian Macadamia Society in a Smart Farming Partnerships project funded under the National Landcare program, under a Hort Innovation facilitated project.  The main thrust of the project is to enhance the on-site digital monitoring of environmental factors to proactively inform the business ‘day to day’, leading to informed decision making. Using the established APPS (Australian Plant Production Standard) environmental management system EcoHort, the project aims to collect key natural resource usage e.g. water use, and environmental performance data e.g. nitrate run-off, and present it to a business on an interactive digital web based dashboard. The project has engaged a pilot production nursery based in the Great Barrier Reef catchment to field test this monitoring equipment and application processes to guide GIA in advising industry wide use in the future.

Perhaps one of the major focus areas of natural resource use and environmental pressure is water access and use. Whether it is water supply and security, efficient irrigation practices, or management of recycled and waste water, it is fair to say the heat is on. When water is plentiful, application seems often to be at overly high rates. But what is the reality? Wasted pumping costs, wasted water, wasted fertiliser, increased growing times, saturated growing media, disease, and increased pesticide use for a start. Surely that money would be better going to the business owner to use elsewhere? Couple this with the fact the business is under greater community scrutiny, to the public it looks like the sprinklers seem to run all day, and then the water outflow, what is going on there?

So, what do you do?

You could choose to do nothing and simply react to the complaints from neighbours, other community members, or one day the local or state government representative. It will be challenging to justify the water that seems to stream from the outflow drain daily, as it will to explain the green algae or sludge that seems to continually expand. How will you defend your business and its practices? If you are serious about improving either your general business or your environmental performance, seek out a copy of the EcoHort guidelines. They are available from the Australian Plant Production Standard website.  

The EcoHort guidelines are a tool for use by all production nurseries, media manufacturers and greenlife markets. Operators do not need to be NIASA accredited to at least explore how efficient natural resource management might improve their business. The inherent risk management approach is also a useful overarching business principle, as is that of continual improvement.

It is important to see your business as operating within an environment that is owned by everyone. Do your bit to ensure you minimise negative impacts and perhaps contemplate maximising the positive impacts. It is highly recommended you follow an established set of BMP principles and procedures and keep a record of your outstanding performance!

The Hort Innovation-GIA Smart Farming Partnerships project will collect data on the pilot production nursery for the next 3 years. Regular reports and articles are expected to inform the broader industry of the relevant equipment used, the breadth of parameters measured and the potential for deployment to not only EcoHort certified businesses, but any that rate their environmental performance as key to their business success.