Environmental Management and Management Systems - Case Study Example

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT Insert name: Insert course code: Instructor’s name: 28 December, 2010. Introduction There are interactions between the various constituents of the environment like the different life forms, energy and material resources as well as the atmosphere. For instance, alterations in biosphere composition influence the atmosphere composition. Most important are the effect of human activity on the environment, and the outcomes of these effects on human well-being. All environmental problems are mainly related to the use and distribution of resources, affecting water, air as well as soil quality and quantity. The growth of population and economic wealth, along with the increase of several processes, like urbanization and industrialization, has led to a high consumption of natural resources and as a result, negative effects on the sustainability of the ecological quality have risen (Cortés, and Poch p. 5). An environmental management system (EMS) is a formal approach to managing the aspects of an organization’s activities, products and services that have, or could have an impact on the environment Environmental management and management systems According to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), an environmental management system (EMS) is that part of the overall management system that includes organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes as well as resources for developing, implementing, achieving, reviewing and maintaining the environmental policy. An EMS enables private companies, federal and state agencies as well as other organizations to establish, and assess the effectiveness of processes to set environmental policy and objectives, achieve compliance, and demonstrate such compliance to others. In reference to the 2007 Sheffield floods, the EMSs are discussed as a means to offer standardized frameworks from which individualized performance criteria can be established and measured. Therefore, an organization can know whether it has actually reduced levels of resource consumption or environmental emissions rather than whether it has merely met a regulation. Due to such catastrophes, there are international standards that cover EMSs that have been developed to provide organizations with the elements of an EMS that can be integrated with other management functions to help them attain environmental and economical goals. For instance, ISO 14000 is one of the standards that supports environmental protection and prevent pollution in balance with socioeconomic needs. ISO 14000 entails sixteen standards that handle organizational issues and products. ISO 14001 is the EMS specification document outlining the requirements that an organization must meet for its EMS to be registered or certified to the standard. It is a tool to measure the effectiveness off environmental management programs. When addressing such scenarios as the 2007 Sheffield floods, it is important to know that when an EMS is integrated into an organization’s business decision making processes, it can improve program management and enhance environmental performance. Also, when an EMS is incorporated into central management systems and organizational strategies, there is less need for external oversight as core business operations take ownership of environmental responsibility. Thus organizations ought to implement EMSs within their organization. The full cost of implementing an EMS includes the salary and time costs of in-house staff devoted to the project, as well as costs of any certification program. Most of organizations have incorporated environmental management systems in their culture but there is need for improvement. When the culture of an organization is changing, the most challenging aspect facing such organizations is how to institute new management systems that require major change in their internal culture, away from compliance-based reporting and toward more active environmental stewardship. To achieve this and make these programs successful, organizations need to incorporate the critical elements of outreach, education as well as training since changing the culture requires analysis of how things were done in the past and what was wrong in that approach, as well as why the new system is better. Thus to avoid such disaster I future, organizations need to shift from environmental protection and prevention of pollution by involving all of their employees, building an infrastructure to support them in taking responsibility for the environmental aspects of their jobs, as well as educating them concerning environmental issues (Federal Facilities Council et al. 1999 p. 5). International environmental concerns Climate change has been the main agenda in the global environmental problem. Among the main issues discussed are the Ozone depletion and the green house gases. The ozone depletion issue has emerged severally on national as well as international political agenda. During the first and the second comings in the 1970s, it was framed as national problem in the regulation of hazardous technologies. Nations like America came to view ozone depletion in late 1980s as a global environmental problem when it was melding with climate change concerns. Currently there are international communities of stratospheric researchers who have achieved a rapid and widespread support among the leaders. This has led to environmental revolutions which have provided fertile ground for converting the new scientific arguments about ozone depletion into political action. The international developments on environmental issues have led to the crafting off the “Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer” in 1985 as well as its “Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer” in 1987 and their subsequent revisions. These international developments have increasingly set the pace and have also influenced the character of American engagement with the ozone issue from the early 1980s onward (Clark, 2001 p. 267). There have been various international meetings to address the problems associated with air pollution and acidic deposition. In the early 1970s, the Scandinavian nations appeared to be a lone in the wilderness crying out for greater environmental awareness. Nevertheless, the wind of change blew with the 1975 Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation, at which the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, proposed that attempts be made to deal with the three pan-European issues, energy the environment and transport. The Convention on Long-Range Trans-boundary Air Pollution arose from this and was signed by 35 countries, including the USA and Britain in November 1979 in Geneva. The treaty dealt with voluntary controls on levels of SO2 emissions as well as with other atmospheric pollutants including various sulphur, nitrogen and chlorine compounds, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons along with heavy metals. The conference on the Acidification of the Environment was held in Stockholm in 1982 and resulted in the international agreement to endeavor to minimize acid pollution to the environment (Pickering, and Owen, 1997 p. 182). Since pollution cannot be confined within national borders, there are several environmental concerns that ought to be dealt with by international community: issues such as air pollution (the greenhouse effect, acid rain, and radioactive fallout); water pollution (ocean dumping, oil spills and contaminant runoffs); soil erosion; and the degradation or extinction of plant and animal species. In June 1992, delegates from 172 countries met in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. There were several things that were generated among which are: (1) the Rio Declaration, a small statement that outlines 27 principles linking environmental protection and economic development, and also acknowledged developing nations’ right to develop responsibly; (2) an agreement by industrialized countries to reduce the emission of gases thought to cause global warming (the greenhouse effect) to 1990 levels by year 2000, with these nations’ adoption of emission-control policies among many others (Emerson, 2009 p. 546). The relevant regulatory frameworks The current arrangements for water management in Sheffield offers a useful baseline from which to describe the institutional and societal context as well as the task environment out of which new patterns of water networks will develop. Water management in Sheffield has a long and vulnerable tradition. Both the institutional processes and the networks of relations linking the actors involved that have grown up around them have evolved gradually over the last two centuries. Due to pressures from within and outside the country, the immediate sectoral institutions as well as the wider political and socioeconomic context within which water policy is formulated and carried out are being radically transformed. Like other places in Central and Eastern Europe, Sheffield is experiencing extensive political and institutional discontinuity due to its transition from a system of central state direction of the economy to a parliamentary democracy and free-market economy. The Sheffield system of water management is thus undergoing a process of re-institutionalization by shedding partially the institutional shell of the previous regime while searching for a form more suitable for the new political economy. The water regime will need a new legal basis; the balance between the demands of water management and environmental protection will have to be worked out; the relations between various actors involved in performing the various water management tasks will have to be redefined on the basis of a new allocation of functions and powers for the policy strategy selected. These choices will be made as part of the general process of radical economic and politico-administrative and social transformation presently underway in Sheffield. The range of regulatory strategies and instruments accessible to water managers will be determined by the demands and possibilities of the emerging market economy (Bressers, Richardson, J. & Richardson J.J. 1995 p. 169). The administration strategy shall manage flood and coastal wearing down hazards through a portfolio of actions which are apart from the customary approaches of protection, drainage as well as defense. These actions comprise of threat plans, responsiveness operations, deluge warnings, disaster preparation along with response organization, society defenses, resilience actions, fixing of “sustainable drainage systems” (SUDs), and changes to land administration as well as support to persons or societies to become accustomed to change. This entails the hindrance offered to community to alter their possessions to aid at protecting the structure, equipment and furniture from deluge, or to decrease the cost as well as time of recuperating from flooding. At present, the EA, local establishment and “Internal Drainage Boards” have numerous powers permitting them to carry out diverse flood protection and coast defense operations. There is also a bill of adaptation as an administration reaction which entails an entire scope of approaches: from building coastal defenses, providing matching flood storage space to lengthen the existence of a system, to the provision of information and support to become accustomed as well as to live with hazard and its possible impacts. Adaptation as well comprises of approaches like avoiding unsuitable expansion in regions of deluge menace, making structures resilient to downpour, or moving possessions out of threat regions where this is possible and realistic (Food and Rur Department for Environment et al. 2009 p. 24). New technologies and approaches to environmental management From an environmental management point of view, floodplains should be viewed as integral elements of the river channel, interacting closely with its hydrological, geo-morphological and ecological processes. Sheffield is surrounded by seven hills and there are rivers that pass through it and hence it is in lowland. Lowland rivers provide a range of environmental problems associated mainly with the management of extreme events. However, with the industrial revolution, new engineering technologies have been developed to control floods and shape channels, and these have led to a progressive invasion of the floodplain by towns and cities. Flood protection is now an important modern element of river management, and channels have to be enlarged and/ or constrained. Furthermore, there are upstream flood regulations reservoirs have been built to reduce flood flows downstream. There is also channelization which has affected many lowland rivers in the world by enhancing land drainage improvement, the maintenance of navigation, flood control, as well as highway protection. This has also brought about several conflicts that have to be reconciled in effective management of the total river environment. The general environmental impact of channelization is to minimize hydraulic, morphological, sedimentological and ecological diversity in streams (Nath p. 46). In conclusion, to be effective, environmental management and cleaner production strategies need to be carefully implemented through the involvement of all stakeholders at all levels of intervention. New approaches ought to be considered not as simply technical instruments related to the environment, but rather should be seen as holistic integrating approaches which will help to define new models of an environmentally and socially sound market economy. To be fully effective, these new approaches will also require a regulatory framework, incentive instruments and social consensus defined through the involvement of institutions, social partners as well as interested ecological and consumer organizations (Stellman et al. 1998 p. 54.28). References: Bressers, H., Richardson, J. & Richardson J.J. 1995. “Networks for water policy: a comparative perspective”. UK, Routledge. From http://books.google.com/books?id=TbRp7UkpsEwC&pg=PA186&dq=relevant+regulatory+framework+in+flood+management&hl=en&ei=H0YTYX3MJHpObDwqIMJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=relevant%20regulatory%20framework%20in%20flood%20management&f=true (accessed December 27, 2010) Clark, C. W. 2001. Learning to manage global environmental risks: A comparative history of social responses to climate change, ozone depletion, and acid rain / William C. Clark .., Volume 1. MA, MIT Press. From http://books.google.com/books?id=Sb27hvA4fEoC&pg=PA269&dq=International+environmental+concerns+such+as+Greenhouse+effect&hl=en&ei=pnAYTcjyEIuFhQeljcW3Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=International%20environmental%20concerns%20such%20as%20Greenhouse%20effect&f=true (accessed December 27, 2010) Cortés, U. and Poch, M. 2009. Advanced Agent-Based Environmental Management Systems. Germany, Birkhauser Verlag. From http://books.google.com/books?id=lU8U3C3jLgIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Environmental+management+and+management+systems&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=true (accessed December 27, 2010) Emerson, R.W. 2009. Business Law. New York, Barron's Educational Series. From http://books.google.com/books?id=60TRO4E3o7YC&pg=PA546&dq=International+environmental+concerns+such+as+Greenhouse+effect&hl=en&ei=pnAYTcjyEIuFhQeljcW3Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=International%20environmental%20concerns%20such%20as%20Greenhouse%20effect&f=false (accessed December 27, 2010) Federal Facilities Council, National Research Council Staff, and National Research Council. 1999. “Environmental management systems and ISO 14001: summary report”. National Academies Press. From http://books.google.com/books?id=p9uz6mCiqXcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Environmental+management+and+management+systems&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a&cd=2#v=onepage&q&f=true (accessed December 27, 2010) Food and Rur Department for Environment, & Welsh Assembly Government. 2009. Draft Flood and Water Management Bill, April 2009: Cm 7582. Welsh, The Stationery Office. From http://books.google.com/books?id=j4N87_KgfNAC&pg=PA135&dq=relevant+regulatory+framework+in+flood+management&hl=en&ei=H0YTYX3MJHpObDwqIMJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=relevant%20regulatory%20framework%20in%20flood%20management&f=true (accessed December 27, 2010) Nath B. 1999. Environmental Management in Practice: Managing the ecosystem. UK, Routledge. From http://books.google.com/books?id=wA40012ZjM0C&pg=PA45&dq=new+technologies+and+approaches+to+environmental+management+of+flood&hl=en&ei=9X0ZTdqNIKOqhAfdzPy2Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=new%20technologies%20and%20approaches%20to%20environmental%20management%20of%20flood&f=false (accessed December 27, 2010) Pickering, K. T. and Owen, L. A. 1997. An introduction to global environmental issues UK, Routledge. From http://books.google.com/books?id=oJi8ufgzrAwC&pg=PA178&dq=International+environmental+concerns+such+as+Greenhouse+effect&hl=en&ei=pnAYTcjyEIuFhQeljcW3Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed December 27, 2010) Stellman, J.M. and International Labour Office. 1998. Encyclopaedia of occupational health and safety, Volume 2. International Labour Organization. From http://books.google.com/books?id=Ceuq9P4hLJMC&pg=RA1PT527&dq=new+technologies+and+approaches+to+environmental+management&hl=en&ei=9HwZTaSVJ4yQ4gbd8qSGAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=new%20technologies%20and%20approaches%20to%20environmental%20management&f=false (accessed December 27, 2010) Read More