Benefits and limits of the Environmental Management System: the opinion of the Italian Organizations
Anna Mazzi1, Caterina Vecchiato1, Filippo Zuliani1, Sara Toniolo1, Antonio Scipioni1*
1 CESQA University of Padova, Department of Industrial Engineering, Via Marzolo 9, 35131 Padova, Italy
* Corresponding author: tel.: +390498275539; fax: +390498275785. E-mail address:
Abstract
In the last years one of the most fundamental changes affecting policy makers has undoubtedly been the adoption of the concept of sustainable development.
In response to this new tendency, most countries have adopted new regulations and economic instruments, as environmental taxes, rebate schemes and tradable pollution permits, while many organizations have adopted environmental policies and carried out environmental management tools, such as the Environmental Management System (EMS). An EMS is a transparent, systematic process, with the purpose of prescribing and implementing environmental goals, policies and responsibilities, as well as a regular auditing of its elements.
The international standard to develop an environmental management system is the ISO 14001. In scientific literature, the adoption of an ISO 14001 helps companies to reduce their environmental incidents and liabilities, increase efficiency of operations by removing waste from production and distribution process, increase awareness of environmental impacts of operations among all employees, and establish a strong image of corporate social responsibility.
Over the past 10 years, the University of Padua in collaboration with the Italian Competent Body (ACCREDIA, previously SINCERT) conducted a series of surveys of Italian organizations certified ISO 14001, to know their opinion about difficulties and utility in the ISO 14001 requirements application. The survey involved all types of organizations (public and private organizations, from different industrial and services sectors) through an online questionnaire sent by e-mail.
Analysis of the results shows how, over the years, organizations demonstrate a growing awareness about the usefulness and benefits of the ISO 14001 certification. Italian organizations deem the following requirements of ISO 14001: identification of legal requirements, competence, training and awareness, management of operational control, preparation and emergency response, monitoring and measurement, assessment of compliance, management review. At the same time, the organizations consider as most difficult requirements the following: identification of legal requirements, sourcing of resources, competence, training and awareness, management of operational control, assessment of compliance. We analyzed the responses also according to type of organization (SME or large enterprise, public or private organization, and so on): there are no substantial differences.
In conclusion, Italian ISO 14001 certified organizations find it useful to have an EMS, in particular as regards to manage significant environmental aspects, to assess environmental performance management and to assure legal compliance. Italian organizations also recognize that these are also the most complex steps to develop an EMS. These considerations confirm but also enrich what is already know in the literature, going over the results obtained from similar surveys in other countries.
Keywords
Environmental management system, ISO 14001 certification, survey, Italian organizations
1. Introduction
In the last years, the adoption of sustainable development concept has been affecting policy makers andmarkets. Most countries have adopted new regulations and economic instruments to support environmental sustainability, as environmental taxes, rebate schemes and tradable pollution permits.
At the same time, many organizations have adopted environmental policies and carried out environmental management tools such as the Environmental Management System (EMS).
An EMS can be defined as an aspect of an organisation’s overall management function that determines and implements organisation’s environmental policy; it is a transparent, systematic process with the purpose of prescribing and implementing environmental goals, policies and responsibilities, as well as a regular auditing of its elements.
ISO14001 is theinternational standard with requirements and guidelines relatedto environmental management system. Approved in 1996 and then revised in 2004, it offers a format for developing an environmental policy, identifying environmental aspects, defining environmental objectives and targets, implementing a program to attain a company’s environmental goals, monitoring and measuring effectiveness, correcting deficiencies and problems, and reviewing management system to promote continuous improvement of organization’s environmental performances (Vivian, 1998; Rondinelli et al, 2000).
Like many ISO standards, ISO14001 is voluntary; there are no legal requirements to certify.All around the world diffusion of ISO 14001 certifications records important achievements, spreading a consistent and continuous increase during the yearsboth in number of certificated organizations and in number of countries that have issuedthiscertification(ISO, 2013).As number of ISO14001 certificates, Italy is the second country in the world and the first in Europe (ISO, 2013).
The success of this standard is due to several factors.ISO 14001 certification helps companies to reduce their environmental incidents and liabilities, increase efficiency of operations by removing waste from production and distribution process, increase awareness of environmental impacts of operations among all employees, and establish a strong image of corporate social responsibility (Vivian, 1998; Rondinelli et al, 2000; Zutshi and Sohal, 2004-a).
Firms are using ISO14001requirements for numerous reasons, such as:
- assurance of regulatory compliance (Bansal et al, 2002; Sharfman and Fernando, 2008;Lopez-Gamero et al, 2010);
- improvement of environmental performances (Bansal et al, 2002; Fryxell, 2002; Morrow and Rondinelli, 2002;Raines, 2002; Iraldo et al, 2009);
- support of the strategic business goals (Kitazawa et al, 2000; Zutshi and Sohal, 2004-a; Wagner, 2008);
- increase of market success (Darnall et al, 2010; Pereira-Moliner et al, 2012);
- response to customersand stakeholders pressures (Miles and Covin, 2000);
- increase of innovation processes and products (Ammenberg and Suntin, 2005; Frondel et al, 2008; Wagner, 2008; Iraldo et al, 2009).
However, many authors complain about the difficulty on organizations to understand the critical factors for a successful implementation of ISO14001, as well as the benefits and limits that would be brought to them by ISO14001 (Gavronski et al, 2008; Iraldo et al, 2009; Heras-Saizarbitoria et al, 2011).
This research aims to investigate the awareness of Italian organizations certified to ISO14001 about the benefits and difficulties of adopting an EMS, and to compare the Italian organizations opinion with that in other countries around the world.
3. Research goals and research methodology
The research, conducted in Italy between 2004 and 2013 by the University of Padua in collaboration with the Italian Competent Body (ACCREDIA, previously SINCERT),aims to analyze what is the perception of benefits and difficulties of the EMSof Italian ISO 14001certifiedorganizations.The research goals are the following:
- Investigate whether the Italian organizations are able to quantify the benefits and limits deriving from their EMS;
- Investigate what are for the Italian organizations the main benefits deriving from an EMS
- Investigate whatare for the Italian organizations the main difficultiesadopting an EMS
- Investigate if the opinions of Italian organizations are similar to the results emerging from the literature
The research methodology chosen is a periodic survey conducted every two or three years addressed to the Italian ISO 14001 certified organizations (public and private organizations, of different industrial and services sectors) through an online questionnaire sent by e-mail.
The same questionnaire was adoptedin the surveys, in order to allow a comparison between the organizations responses over the years. The items investigated by the survey are the following:
- General information of the organization;
- Organization’s ability to quantify the benefits and limits of its EMS;
- Main benefits obtained from the EMS;
- Mainlimitsderived from the EMS.
To investigate these items, ad-hocmultiple-choice questions are formulated, as listed in table 1.
Table 1: Items of the periodic survey and related multiple-choice questions.
Survey item / Questions / Multiple-choice answers- General information of the organization
a.2 What is the type of your organization? / a.2-1 Public sector
a.2-2Private sector
a.3 What is the organization’s dimension? / a.3-1Small-medium organization
a.3-2 Large organization
- Organization’s ability to quantify the benefits and limits of its EMS
b.1-2 No
- Main benefits obtained from the EMS
c.1-2Not very useful
c.1-3Quite useful
c.1-4 Very useful
- Main limits derived from the EMS
d.1-2 Quite difficult
d.1-3 Quite easy
d.1-4 Very easy
(*) the question is related to the following ISO14001 requirements: Environmental policy (4.2); Environmental aspects (4.3.1), Legal and other requirements (4.3.2), Objectives, targets and programme (4.3.3), Environmental roles and responsibilities (4.4.1), Resources, roles, responsibility and authority (4.4.1), Competence, training and awareness (4.4.2), Communication (4.4.3), Documentation (4.4.4), Control of documents and records (4.4.5 e 4.5.4), Operational control (4.4.6), Emergency preparedness and response (4.4.7), Monitoring and measurement (4.5.1), Evaluation of compliance (4.5.2), Nonconformity, corrective and preventive actions (4.5.3), Internal audit (4.5.5), Management review (4.6)
Results
Five surveys we conducted from 2004 and 2013 within an increasing number of involved organizations,with a growing percentage of respondent organizations.
Table 2 presents the number of organizations involved in the survey during the yearsand a synthetic description of respondent organizations.
Organization’s ability to quantify the benefits and limits of its EMS is growing in the years, as demonstrated in Table 3. It is notable that not only large organizations but also small-medium (SMEs) improve this ability during the years. However, more than half of the organizations is not able to quantify the benefits of its EMS; this difficulty is more evident for public organizations.
Table 2: General information of Italian organizations involved in the periodic surveys
Year of the survey / N° of organizations involved in survey / % of respondent organizations / % of private companies in respondent organizations / % of SME in respondent organizations2004 / 627 / 16.7% / 91% / 79%
2006 / 917 / 8.9% / 96% / 85%
2008 / 2109 / 10.5% / 89% / 82%
2010 / 5308 / 10.3% / 84% / 84%
2013 / 5608 / 15.0% / 93% / 82%
Table 3: Organization’s ability to quantify benefits and limits of the EMS
Year of the survey / % of respondent organizations able to quantify benefits and limits of EMS / % of private companies able to quantify benefits and limits of EMS / % of public organizations able to quantify benefits and limits of EMS / % of SME organizations able to quantify benefits and limits of EMS / % of large organizations able to quantify benefits and limits of EMS2004 / 9.9% / 10.3% / 5.3% / 8.3% / 15.9%
2006 / 11.2% / 11.4% / 9.0% / 10.5% / 15.7%
2008 / 35.4% / 37.2% / 19.9% / 40.3% / 16.1%
2010 / 46.9% / 46.6% / 38.6% / 46.9% / 46.7%
2013 / 44.5% / 46.3% / 32.5% / 43.4% / 53.1%
The opinions of Italian organizations relating to the main benefits and limits of an EMS are rather homogeneous over the years.Synthetically we report numerical results regarding only of survey of 2013.As represented in Figure 1, the following itemsrelated to the adoption and maintenance of ISO 14001 certification are more important for respondent organizations: identification of legal requirements, competence, training and awareness, management of operational control, preparation and emergency response, monitoring and measurement, assessment of compliance, management review.At the same time, the Italian organizations consider as most difficult requirements the following items: identification of legal requirements, sourcing of resources, competence, training and awareness, management of operational control, assessment of compliance (figure 2).
Figure 1: Main benefits in implementing/maintaining theEMS
Figure 2: Main limitsin implementing/maintaining the EMS
Discussion and conclusions
We can summarize the results of these Italian surveys in comparison with the results of other surveys conducted in recent years in different countries.
The surveys conducted in Italy during the last ten years demonstrate that the Italian organizations with an ISO14001 certified EMS have improved their ability to quantify benefits and limits of EMS; this is in according to Iraldo et al, 2009. This trend is confirmed both for private and public sector, and both large and SME organizations.
However, for many organizations is still difficult to quantify the benefits of an EMS, coeherently with the results of Zutshi and Sohal, 2004-a and 2004-b.
Especially in the public sector it is still difficult to quantify the benefits and limits of an EMS,confiming results of other surveys, asLozano and Vallés, 2007 andMazzi et al, 2012.
The most significant benefits for Italian organizations are relatedto the following requirements:
- legal compliance, according to the results of Bansal et al, 2002; Known et al, 2002; Zutshi and Sohal, 2004-a; Chan and Wong, 2006; Gavronski et al, 2008;Lopez-Gamero et al, 2010; Zeng et al, 2011,
- human resources management, according to Babakri et al, 2003;Zutshi and Sohal, 2004-b; Jabbour C.J.C et al, 2013;
- and performance monitoring, according to Balzarova and Castka, 2008; Frondel et al, 2008; Khan, 2013;Abad et al, 2014.
At the same time, all these items are considered the most difficult requirements to satisfy in ISO14001 certification process, partially according to Babakri et al, 2003and De Oliveira et al, 2010.
In conclusion, we can summarize the results of this research in three statements:
- More than 50% of Italian ISO14001 certified organizations has still difficulty in quantifying the benefits and limits of the EMS, especially in the public sector. This result is substantially coherent with many other studies in different countries.
- For Italian ISO14001 certified organizations the EMS improves the awareness of legislative commitments and the ability to assess environmental performance. Similar results was obtain also from other authors, with similar or different researches.
- For Italian ISO14001 certified organizationsthere is a relationship between difficulties and benefits of the standard requirements compliance. This statement is not found in other studies.
To extend this research, it would be interesting to investigate what are specific correlations between the answers, particularly related to the Italian survey conducted in 2013,withsuitable statistical methods.
Aknowledgement
The authors thank: ACCREDIA, the Italian Accreditation Competent Body, for having approved and supported the research, all the Italian Certification Bodies for involving certified organizations, and all the organizations which participated in the initiative with their own valuable experience.
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