Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Environmental management systems
Eco-audits alone are snapshot views: they are more effective if they are part of a
structured environmental management system. Environmental management systems
(EMSs) were developed in response to the realization that there was a need for an
integrated and proactive approach to environmental issues. They are a means for
helping industry, or other bodies, comply with environmental regulations, obtain

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BOX 4.2  Eco-audit-environmental management system standards
Note: These standards, which deal with environmental management systems
(EMSs), have evolved from total quality management (TQM), and are
quality auditing systems. They must be widely applicable, effective at
getting regulation, yet flexible. It is also desirable that they help integrate
environmental management quality standards with commercial quality
management (product/ service quality) standards and occupational health
and safety quality management standards (Young, 1994).
BS7750
In early 1992 the world’s first eco-audit standard was published—British
Standards Institute’s BS7750 Specification for Environmental Management
Systems (British Standards Institution, 1992; 1994a; 1994b; Hunt and Johnson,
1995:89) —derived from an earlier Management Quality System BS5750. A
number of countries adopted it and it was revised in 1993 and 1994 to make it
more compatible with the more recently introduced Eco-Management and Audit
Scheme (EMAS—which has drawn upon BS7750) (Bohoris and O’Mahoney,
1994; Sharratt, 1995:41–53; Willig, 1994:33–42; Buckley, 1995). BS7750 is a
means by which an organization can establish an EMS. To obtain BS7750 a
body has to establish and maintain environmental procedures and an
environmental protection system which meets BS7750 specifications and
demonstrate compliance. It must also be committed to cycles of self-
improvement through internal eco-audit. There are three elements to BS7750:
(1) possession of an environmental policy; (2) a documented EMS; (3) a register
of effects on the environment.
Critics of BS7750 argue that it is possible to get the standard by
promising to do better and then to release relatively little information to
the public (it is not as open as, say, the US Toxic Releases Inventory). At
the time of writing BS7750 did not provide for a publicity logo and was
being superseded by the ISO14001 series.
EMAS
The Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) was launched in 1993 (EU
Council Regulation 1836/93) although it was not until April 1995 that it came
into force in the UK (Welford, 1992; EEC, 1993; Brown, 1995). EMAS goes
beyond eco-audit to require an approved EMS and the production of an
independently verified public statement. EMAS seeks to encourage industries
in EU states to adopt a site-specific, proactive approach to environmental
management and improve their performance. EMAS is in some ways similar
to, and is broadly compatible with, the already established BS7750, but is
much broader in scope and requires greater public reporting of audits. It is
stronger than BS7750 on environmental protection, and is aimed more at

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industrial activities. EMAS is also stronger on ensuring that a body regulates
its environmental impacts.
EMAS registration is voluntary (but is established in the EEC by
regulation so that consistent rules are supposed to be set for all those