GHG Acheives Tri Certification

Next year, GHG turns 25 years old. In that time, we’ve learnt so much about the horticultural industry and what it takes to deliver world-class green sporting surfaces. We are also firm believers that there are always ways to improve, to learn as a team and to deliver an even better service for our customers. And the reality is, if we don’t do this, our competition certainly will!

Earlier in the year, we recognised that seeking external counsel on improving our internal systems would be the best way to continue our growth. We set the ambitious goal of achieving our ISO 45001 (employee safety) ISO 14001 (environmental compliance), and ISO 9001 (management systems) certifications in one attempt. For those that aren’t familiar with these certifications, they are certifications that can only be provided by an externally registered auditor and involve implementing a strict set of processes and systems in accordance with internationally recognised standards. 

Simply put, we signed up for significant internal change that would be company-wide. It was a daunting prospect, but we knew that these changes would only benefit our employees and customers. As the saying goes, “easy choices hard life, hard choices easy life”.

The changes to our systems made a positive impact on just about all areas of the business. All worksites needed to be thoroughly examined for safety, along with training for our staff to ensure they had the required skillset to implement our new standards. These changes even rippled into our sales process, and new technology had to be adapted company-wide. We were proud of the response from our team – their flexible embodiment of these new standards was a pivotal part of the entire process. 

Throughout our process of achieving these three certifications, we also had to navigate some of our most exciting and largest projects to date. While this was a massive challenge for our team, we gained the ability to battle-test and prove the positive results that we expected to come from implementing these new standards. 

After the best part of twelve months, it was time to finally have our new processes audited by external counsel. It’s a daunting process because if we missed the mark, it was back to the drawing board, and the process of nurturing new business systems was to continue. It’s not uncommon for businesses to fail on their first attempt at these certifications as the standards are so high. Thankfully, our hard work as a team and expert external guidance in achieving these standards paid off, and we were awarded all three certifications on our first attempt. 

Having these three certifications is a symbol of our dedication to our teams’ safety, our commitment to delivering outstanding results for our clients and our passion for minimising our environmental footprint. 

Geoff Green – Managing Director

Could you play a role in GHGs future? Head to our careers page, where we have a number of exciting roles open, working on some of Sydney’s most exciting sports field renovation projects. See here for more information.