Safety, Health and Environment , To enhance organisation’s environmental and sustainability performance should voluntary Environmental Management Systems (EMS) certifications, such as ISO 14001 and EMAS, be mandatory?

Safety, Health and Environment. The Dissertation proposal title is as follows: Dissertation Title: To enhance organisation’s environmental and sustainability performance should voluntary Environmental Management Systems (EMS) certifications, such as ISO 14001 and EMAS, be mandatory?

Dissertation Title: To enhance organisation’s environmental and sustainability performance should voluntary Environmental Management Systems (EMS) certifications, such as ISO 14001 and EMAS, be mandatory?

Research Question/ Hypothesis: The introduction of a mandatory adoption of EMAS or ISO 14001, as opposed to voluntary adoption, will increase environmental and sustainability performance in United Kingdom (UK) and European Union (EU) firms.

Aims: The purpose of this study is to investigate what the environmental and sustainability performance benefits would be for organisations in the UK and EU if voluntary EMSs; specifically, ISO 14001 and EMAS, were mandatory for all organisations.

Objectives: 1. To carry out a literature review of currently available research on the environmental performance benefits of global, UK and EU organization’s EMAS or ISO 14001 adoption.

2. To investigate the benefit of the implementation of a mandatory EMAS or ISO 14001 on firm’s environmental and sustainability performance
3. To determine any negative effects, limitations, or barriers of implementation to business, environmental and sustainability performance from mandatory EMAS or ISO 14001 adoption.
4. To extrapolate data gathered from submitted questionaries’ and individual interviews from UK and EU firms EMAS and ISO 14001 adoption experiences to test whether mandatory adoption is beneficial or viable.

Methodology/Methods used for each objective:

1. The initial phase will start the research and collection of international studies, evidence, and case studies that are pertinent to UK and EU’s firms’ experience with ISO 14001 and EMAS adoption. From this detailed literature review information to address objectives 1, 2 and 3 can be extracted.

1. Analysis of this information will then be undertaken and compared to recent findings to support the research project’s aims, objectives and hypothesis.
2. The next phase of research will be the preparation of interview questions pertinent to ascertain the benefits, limitations, and barriers to ISO 14001 and EMAS implementation. The interview(s) will also explore whether the selected firms have seen increased environmental and sustainability performance with implementation of ISO 14001 and/or EMAS. All selected interviewees will be from UK/EU based organisations from a variety of industries, including large and SME companies. Next the conduction of interviews will take place. The individuals selected for interview will be mid to upper-level management professional within organisations in the UK and EU.

4. Concurrently to this a questionnaire will be formulated, tested, and disseminated to a cross section of industries that have adopted ISO 14001 and EMAS. The questionnaire will address objective 4, namely, extrapolation of the semi-quantitative data obtained from the interview and questionnaire. Early submission of the questionnaire will be required as there may be delays in receiving the results and being able to analyse the data. Data and supporting evidence from the literature review will be analysed and formulated into results, conclusions, and recommendations.

Rationale: Good environmental and sustainability stewardship have led many businesses globally to adopt voluntary environmental management systems (EMS’s), such as the International Standards Organization (ISO) ISO 14001 and the European Unions’ Environmental Management and Auditing Scheme (EMAS) to address environmental performance. While studies have produced empirical evidence that certification and adoption of these standards improve business’s environmental performance and invigorate environmental innovation, Frondel, et al., (2018) The actual environmental benefit and impact on business has been debated Frondel, et al., (2018). Therefore, the question of whether these voluntary EMS’s should in fact be mandatory by firms arises.

As described, “An EMS is a management tool that assists firms in handling the environmental impacts for which they are considered responsible” (Nikolaou, et al., 2012, p. 2) in addition, “Like other management systems, an EMS is a formal system for articulating goals, making choices, gathering information, measuring progress, and improving performance” (Florida & Davidson, 2001, p. 64) Therefore, the benefits to organizations seem obvious, as there is synergy with other management systems and the aim of an EMS is to improve environmental performance. However, the direct and indirect costs of implementation have been highlighted as potential cost barriers to implementation (Frondel, et al., 2018). During Frondel, et al., (2018) study, reference was given to the need for further clarification on the business impact of EMS’s as there is sparse empirical evidence to support this. This indicates further research into the business implications of EMS adoption should be explored as part of the investigation into whether voluntary EMS’s should be mandatory.

Organizations internal motivations for adopting EMS’s as summarized by Nikolaou, et al (2012) include, “improvement of environmental costs, environmental risk reduction, the improvement in long-term financial benefits, general cost savings, the reduction in the number of accidents, the health and safety of employees, and the avoidance of fines and penalties” (Nikolaou, et al., 2012, p. 4) which outlines definite benefits to the adoption of voluntary EMS’s, therefore suggesting the mandatory implementation of these EMS’s would be beneficial to all businesses.

Historically, attempts have been made to establish legislation by the Integrated Pollution Prevention Control (IPPC) directive of 1996 to provide companies a pathway to sustainable production, Cunningham (2000). However, this could lead to a reactive uptake of EMS’s from organizations rather than innovation, due to company ‘ownership’ from mandatory implementation of EMS’s, Cunningham (2000). Furthermore this study found that an organization’s adoption of voluntary EMS’s are for various reasons including market competitiveness and benchmarking against similar organizations therefore ‘ownership’ is not entirely for environmental and sustainability reasons, which argues against the essence of implementing a voluntary EMS (Cunningham, 2000).

Voluntary EMS’s provide mainly management and strategy function within corporations; however, they have important link to operations production and communication, Lozano (2012). Various studies have indicated that the adoption of EMS’s reduces environmental impact as outlined by Nishitani, et al., (2012), but also simultaneously improves productivity. This finding is shared in the construction industry and specifically in the Canadian construction sector where, local, and regional governmental support promoted the adoption of EMS’s, Zutshi & Creed (2015). Thus, promoting the idea that mandatory implementation of EMS’s would be beneficial to a wide variety of industry.

Disadvantages to the adoption of EMS’s have been outlined as integration issues such as cost and the non-compliance with the system, possibly leading to penalties incurred by the organisation, Granly & Welo (2014). The author of this study outlined how there is a disparity of benefits from EMS’s, between large high-polluting companies and SME’s. This points to a need for further exploration as to whether mandatory adoption for all sizes of organisations would produce the desired environmental effect and be economically viable, Granly & Welo (2014).

In summary, a vast majority of the studies cited in this paper have eluded to the fact that further research is needed to ascertain whether organisations would benefit from mandatory adoption of EMS’s. Due to these findings there appears to a gap in research of the environmental and sustainable benefits to organisation from mandatory EMS adoption.

Initial References

Cunningham, D., 2000. IPPC, BAT, and voluntary agreements. Journal of Hazardous Materials, Issue 78, pp. 105-121.

Florida, R. & Davidson, D., 2001. Gaining from green management: Environmental mangement systems inside and outside the factory. California Management Review, 43(3), pp. 64-84.

Frondel, M., Kratschell, K. & Zwick, L., 2018. Environmental management systems: Does certification pay?. Economic Analysis and Policy, Issue 59, pp. 14-24.

Granly, B. & Welo, T., 2014. EMS and sustainability: experiences with ISO 14001 and Ecolighthouse in Norwegian mental processing SME’s. Journal of Cleaner Production, Issue 64, pp. 194-204.

Lozano, R., 2012. Toward better embedding sustainability into companies’ systems: an analysis of voluntary corporate initatives. Journal of Cleaner Production, Issue 25, pp. 14-26.

Nikolaou, I., Evangelinos, K., Emmanouil, D. & Leal, W., 2012. Voluntary versus Mandatory EMS implementation: Management Awareness in EMS-Certified Firms. Asia-Pacific Journal of Management Research and Inovation, 8(1), pp. 1-12.

Nishitani, K., Kaneko, S., Fujii, H. & Komatsu, S., 2012. Are firms’ voluntary environmental management activities beneficial for the environment and business? An empirical study on Japanese manufacturing firms. Journal of Environmental Management, Issue 105, pp. 121-130.

Zutshi, A. & Creed, A., 2015. An international review of environmental initatives in the construction sector. Journal of cleaner Production, Issue 98, pp. 92-106.