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Weekly UpdatesWith increasing consumer awareness of environmental issues, some managers are thinking about how to "green" their businesses. Environmental Management Systems are one tool that can help.
A well-designed EMS provides a framework to systematically evaluate and integrate environmental policies into a business' overall goals. The reasons for implementing an EMS are as varied as the businesses that use them. Environmental regulation is probably the most common motivator, but some companies are discovering that a thorough evaluation of environmental impacts can improve their bottom line. At the same time, some managers are redefining the concept of "bottom line."
"It's all about the triple bottom line now: economic, environmental and social," said Green Star's Sean Skaling. He sees changes in the international marketplace pushing businesses toward environmentally friendly practices. "It seems like the world is really starting to demand it, but North America is a little bit late to come to the table," he said. "So it seems like those that change voluntarily might be a step ahead."
A SYSTEMATIC APPROACH
Environmental consultant Francois Cote of ICF Consulting also has noticed a change in the business community. "If you look at how it was 20 years ago, the approach then was very reactive, especially here in North America," he said. "Slowly but surely organizations started to realize that it was not enough to be reactive. You needed to do something a little bit more ... not only, do we want to know what the issues are, but we want to follow a rigorous, thorough, comprehensive approach to not only fix those problems but to prevent them from happening again. That's what the management system approach, the systematic approach, is going to provide to the organization."
Before diving into the EMS process, an organization needs to outline its environmental policy. Stephanie Mann, EMS coordinator at Emerald Alaska, suggested that managers ask themselves several questions: "What is your policy going to be? What are you trying to achieve with this document? What is your end goal?" These introspective steps help tailor the EMS to an individual business' needs.
FOUR STEPS FOR BUSINESS
Various models of EMS exist. The most common is ISO 14001, developed by the International Organization for Standardization and often required in the international marketplace. Regardless of the model, all EMS are based on four steps: Plan, Do, Check, and Act. Planning involves evaluating the company's environmental impacts, including any regulatory or other requirements. "Do" is the implementation step of the EMS, including employee training and documentation. "Check" is an analysis of the effectiveness of the EMS to the company's goals; "Act" involves modifying the EMS as necessary.
A central component of a successful EMS is continual improvement. Identifying impacts does not mean that they all need to be dealt with immediately. The point is to be aware of them and to develop at plan for improving over time.
ESTABLISH AND MAINTAIN
Once an EMS is established, it must be maintained. "It is absolutely a living, breathing document," Mann said. Employee participation is a vital component of that maintenance. "During our monthly safety meetings, we sit down and pick a policy each time and review it to make sure it is still the way we are doing things, that they haven't discovered another way that works better," Mann said. "If they have, and if it is feasible and safe, we rewrite the policy and post it on our Web site for everyone."
To get the most out of an EMS, Cote stressed that organizations must be committed to the process. "The message that I send to potential clients is they have to do it for the right reasons. They have to do it first to achieve improved performance, and then with your system that is well designed, we're going to make sure that system also satisfies the requirements in ISO 14001," he said. "The priority should always be to use a tool to improve performance."
COSTS AND BENEFITS OF AN EMS
The biggest cost of an EMS is often employee time. Purchases, such as recycling containers or efficient fluorescent lamps, might also be called for, but a well-designed EMS should save a business more than it costs.
"A little bit of investment in an EMS could easily result in quite a bit of savings, be it time or resources or straight money," Skaling said. "It all comes down to efficiency, really."
Efficiency can refer to employee training as well as material resources. "The biggest benefit of the EMS is keeping everybody on same page," Mann said. "If you walk through the door today, I could hand you one of these polices, and you would understand how to do your job.... You have the visual, verbal academic knowledge of it before you step foot in the plant."
Regulatory compliance has traditionally been the largest benefit of an EMS, along with improved client relationships. "For us to do business with BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., we have to meet a beck of a lot of guidelines. We have to show them that it's not just on paper, it's reality," Mann said. "I'm about to go through a huge audit. I would not be able to survive this audit if we did not have an EMS in place. There is absolutely no way."
COMMON WAYS TO CUT WASTE
The specifics of an EMS vary from organization to organization, but some steps to reduce waste are applicable to almost any business. Energy conservation can reduce both costs and environmental impacts. Many local utilities provide energy audits to help their customers identify the most cost effective ways to cut energy use.
Skaling recommends businesses examine their lighting system. Switching from older T12 to newer, more efficient T8 fluorescent bulbs can reduce lighting costs by 20 percent to 40 percent. "It's kind of my pet peeve that there are still so many T12 fluorescent lamps around town," he said. "It's kind of amazing to me that businesses haven't made the upgrade since it's such a quick return on the investment...."
Businesses still using incandescent bulbs can see an even greater increase in efficiency by switching to fluorescent. Not only are fluorescent bulbs far more efficient than incandescent, but they are also cooler, which helps to reduce air conditioning costs.
While fluorescent bulbs are far more efficient than incandescent, they do require proper disposal. Heavy metals in the bulbs classify them as hazardous waste, but many landfills offer safe disposal options for the used bulbs.
Some businesses have found industry-specific ways to recycle. Auto body shops can clean and re-use hazardous materials to cut costs for both purchase and disposal, and even reduce their usage below regulatory thresholds. Using a business like Emerald Alaska also can help to minimize waste, by collecting used solvents and other hazardous products for recycling.
Alaska businesses can swap used materials at the free Alaska Materials Exchange. Everything from paint to office furniture is available at http:// www.greenstarinc.org/ame/ameindex. php. According to Skaling, the AME has saved Alaska businesses well in excess of $2 million and has kept an enormous amount of material out of Alaska landfills.
CASE STUDY: DOYON DRILLING
Doyon Drilling, which operates five oil and gas rigs on the North Slope, got a quick introduction to EMS in the 1990s after it ran into trouble with environmental regulations. Leaders hired an environmental consultant to help them develop a court-ordered EMS. "It was a company-wide commitment and effort. We really introduced a whole new culture to our organization," said Russ Douglass, environmental affairs director for Doyon Drilling.
The resulting EMS works with Doyon Drilling's environmental policy, which states: "We're going to be in compliance with all the regulations. We're going to report all of our incidents and we're going to investigate all our incidents," Douglass said. "Our EMS is the system that says how we're going to do all that."
Two essential pieces to keeping the EMS functional are a corrective action program for investigating incidents and preventing their future occurrence, and a review procedure. "You need a process to evaluate it on a periodic basis so you can make sure that everything is being maintained. Lots of times, with a system like this, you put it in place and everybody just forgets about it. We can't afford to do that."
Doyon Drilling illustrates some of the essential features of a successful EMS: company-wide commitment, integration with company policy and ongoing reassessment. Implemented properly, an EMS should not only help a company to avoid regulatory trouble, but should also improve overall performance.
EMS RESOURCES
Resources are available for learning more about EMS:
* U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Web site, www.epa.gov/ems.
* Peer-to-peer mentoring
* Environmental consultants
* Green Star Inc.
* EMS workshops such as an upcoming Small Business Development Center seminar in Fairbanks
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