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Monday, 4 August 2008
Weekly Tip #25: EMS - don't run before you can walk
This is the latest of a series of tips extracted from the forthcoming Green Business Bible e-book:When implementing an Environmental Management System like ISO14001, get the system up and running before going for accreditation. This will help ensure that the system is designed for you and works with your other systems.
Labels: environmental management systems, tips
# posted by Gareth Kane : 09:42
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Monday, 24 September 2007
Environmental Management Systems Boom
Edie is reporting figures from the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) showing that the number of businesses in the UK holding an ISO 14001 certificate has risen by a whopping 15% in the first 6 months of this year.ISO14001 is probably the most popular Environmental Management System (EMS) for business. While at first glance the standard may seem straightforward, the amount of time and effort required to get all the procedures and documentation together should not be underestimated. The most difficult requirement is probably for 'continual improvement' - those pesky auditors will expect you to be able to demonstrate year on year improvements in your environmental performance and many companies make the mistake of ignoring this until it is too late and scrabbling around for tenuous evidence of debatable relevance.
Terra Infirma doesn't 'do' EMSs - our focus is on more practical changes to environmental performance - but we recognise that a well designed EMS can provide a solid framework on which to build a sustainable business. An EMS won't give you a sustainable business - you will need to be much more radical than mere continual improvement and many find that challenging enough.
I do suggest you consider carefully whether an EMS is suitable for you (eg I'm not convinced an office based organisation needs one - others disagree), and, most importantly, whether you can resource it properly. Your poor Quality/Health & Safety/Whatever manager will not thank you for yet another job title. If you decide to commission one, make sure it works for you and not the other way around. Lastly: good luck!
Labels: environmental management systems
# posted by Gareth Kane : 13:16
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Sunday, 16 September 2007
Sustainability Lessons from Total Quality Management
One of the criticisms of Environmental Management Systems (eg ISO14001) is their reliance on mere continual improvement of environmental performance. It has always surprised me that environmental management has not pinched more ideas from its big brother, quality management.The Total Quality Management (TQM) movement was conceived in the USA in the 50s but took off in Japan, where it has been credited with turning the phrase 'made in Japan' from shorthand for cheap tatty products into a badge of prestige. The motor industry in particular took it up with a vengance and ended the dominance of US and European models in the global market, until the West started adopting the same techniques.
TQM has two types of change:
• Kaikaku - big radical changes that align the whole system to deliver quality products.
• Kaizen - continual, incremental improvements within that system to squeeze the best performance out of it.
Kaikaku can be considered as 'doing the right thing' and Kaizen as 'doing things right'.
I strongly believe that industry should adopt a similar model for environment performance - big radical changes (like sustainable product development, adopting cleaner manufacturing processes or shifting to product-service systems) should be complemented with basic waste minimisation and energy efficiency techniques. If the success of TQM could be replicated in environmental management, we'd be a long way down the road to sustainability.
Labels: environmental management systems, total quality management
# posted by Gareth Kane : 14:08
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A highly accessible, practical guide to those who want to introduce sustainability into their business or organization quickly and effectively.
