Intent
Thrifty offers car hire in over 200 locations nationally, and is the only Australian-owned, international rental car brand. Many of its largest operations (not the counters, but where they wash and detail vehicles and perform minor servicing) are located on airport sites in capital cities across Australia. These ‘airport sites’ are subject to the requirements of Commonwealth legislation which stipulate compliance with the Airport’s Environmental Strategy.
All major airports across Australia require their tenants to develop an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) or equivalent which defines how they will identify and manage environmental risks and meet the airport’s minimum environmental requirements. In many cases the airport also sets minimum requirements for EMP elements such as performance reporting, inspections/audits and incident reporting.
Approach
- Liaise with Thrifty HSE Advisor, Regional Managers and Branch Managers to scope:
- legal requirements and site-specific airport requirements for all states
- standard operating procedures (also called work instructions) which define how the environmental risks of Thrifty operations will be controlled - Develop eight (8) separate EMPs in line with NSW Planning Guidelines for the Preparation of Environmental Management Plans and each airport’s own Airport Environmental Strategy (AES).
- Develop set of eleven (11) one-page poster style SOPs for roll-out across Thrifty Australia-wide covering relevant environmental risk and operational control topics.
- Coordinate review of all materials by internal and external stakeholders, and finalise for approval (all EMPs had to be approved by the airport operator).
Deployment
All SOPs were completed and finalised at the same time as the first EMP. This allowed the project team to make the SOPs available during development of the remaining states.
The EMPs were progressively rolled-out to each State as they were completed (approx. 6 month process) via a brief initial one-one-one remote mentoring session and assistance from the Thrifty HSE Advisor.
Exis designed and developed a half-day face-to-face training program aimed at ensuring the responsible managers understand, implement and maintain the EMP and SOPs. This training was delivered by Exis to relevant Regional and Branch Managers at Mascot, NSW and included interactive classroom workshops and a practical site inspection exercise.
Outcomes
- Measurable improvement in housekeeping and environmental control applied to chemicals and water management on site
Induction at all sites now includes environmental component. - EMPs well received by all Thrifty managers due to extensive consultation processes.
- Very positive feedback from Airports – e.g. Environment Officer at Adelaide Airport Limited replied “Your EMP and SOP’s look and read excellent”.
- Practical inspection checklists and reporting formats utilised and now adopted at non-airport sites.
- Performance improvements resulting from better management of environmental risks.