Contributors:

The following organisations contributed to the development of this tool:

Introduction

Envirostep is a free, entry-level environmental management tool for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand. It was developed by the Ministry of Economic Development in collaboration with a number of other contributors (see panel to the right), and provides users with:

• An environmental performance score & profile.
• Recommendations (to reduce operating costs, environmental impacts & risk).
• An action plan (to implement selected recommendations).
• Over 300 links to other environmental tools, service providers & further information.

SMEs using Envirostep will get a better understanding of their environmental issues and opportunities, and the practical steps they can take to manage them. It should also help SMEs progress to more sophisticated tools and certification schemes should they so wish.

As with any self-assessment, the results are only as good as your answers, and your score may not be recognised by other organisations unless it has been independently validated.

Components

Envirostep has the following components:

• A self-assessment questionnaire, covering different aspects of your environmental performance.
• An environmental report, which gives users a performance score, profile, performance trend and recommendations for improvement.
• An action plan, which you can use to turn your recommendations into prioritised actions and track your progress.
• A further information section, which contains a User Guide and links to other tools and service providers.
• A feedback page, allowing users to register any problems using the site, or to propose additional content and links.

Using Envirostep

Once you have registered basic details about yourself and your business, you can access a questionnaire of between 33 and 119 questions (depending on your ‘Site Type’ and ‘Environmental Commitment’). The questions are distributed between 10 different categories, and you can complete as few or as many as you wish.

Your responses are automatically saved, so you can stop and return to the questionnaire at any time without losing data. Each answer contributes to your overall score. As the questions are generic, some may not be relevant to your business. You can update or close your questionnaire when you like, although we recommend that you close questionnaires quarterly or annually (so that you can view your performance trend over time).

Your registration details and answers are confidential and will not be provided to others. All scores will however be used to create a national average score, so that users can assess their relative performance. For further information about confidentiality, you can view our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Limitations

This tool has been designed to provide SMEs with generic, automated guidance based upon a basic self-assessment. It is not a definitive assessment of environmental performance, and those requiring a more detailed assessment should contact a specialist service provider.