Background of Environmental Management Systems
The ‘Environmental Management System (EMS)’ in Australia, is supported and regulated by the Australian government to assist the agricultural sector and its grain and beef production. As the world become more polluted the main agenda behind creating EMS is to focus on food production by providing advanced technology to agricultural sector in order to produce quality grains and also support other production system (such as beef production, cattle feedlots, piggeries, and battery hens etc.) which all are part of Australian agriculture (Nguyen, et.al, 2014).
The terms ‘clean and green’ are highly used in Australian agriculture which means the food is produced free of contamination, while ‘green’ refers to food that is produced and processed with the help of natural resources and environmentally acceptable things. The green product should be extended to the packaging and distribution of products and are free from genetic engineering that causes dangerous disease such as Cancer.
EMS is a methodical approach, which concerned with organisational regulations, controlling, structure, planning, and review of the organisational operations and activities thus the adverse impacts of the organisational activities should be minimised on the environment. The major focus of EMS is to measure and control the impacts of production on the environment rather than regulating the quality of end products. EMS is a management tool that helps the Australian government to manage day-to-day environmental hazards that are occurring because of using artificial techniques and chemicals for producing agricultural products (de Oliveira, et. al, 2017).
The three key objectives of EMS reflect the three broad environmental problems of the world and that can be so harmful to our community. Therefore, these objectives can be transformed into three key drivers, which are as follow:
- The management of natural resources and focuses on environmental issues such as conservation of water, soil, biodiversity, and vegetation
- Focuses on competitiveness objectives (such as better product quality, price, and standard, input-output efficiencies, and efficient production)
- Social objectives (farmers, landholders, and community to protect cultural heritage and care about occupational health and safety matters)
There are many different frameworks for EMS, however, ISO 14000 series is adopted by both Australian and New Zealand as the preferred standard. The ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 14040:2006 are the two major internationally accepted standards. Both helps and guide to successfully implementing the EMS system in agriculture system. The ISO 14001:2015 is a tool that helps EMS program and applicable to any organisation regardless of the nature and size of the organisation. These two international standards monitor and control the products, services, and other environmental activities that beyond of organisational control. The ISO 14001:2015 does not support any precise environmental performance criteria rather it support to eliminate those activities that harm our environment. The other ISO standard 14040:2006 describe the main approach and outline for life cycle assessment (LCA) that includes life cycle inventory analysis (LCI), basics (definition, goals, and scope) of the LCA. Further, it describes the pros and cons of LCA. It covers all the detail information about LCA but failed to describe the techniques of LCA in details and also failed to specify practices for the separate stages of the LCA (ISO, 2006).
The effectiveness of other agriculture programs of Australia support environmental management system to proper use and management of water and soil, thus the adverse effect of it on the environment can be prevented. These programs are working together with other environmental programs. EMSs are systems employed to successfully manage the environmental effects and minimise the environmental risks that are associated with business activities. Mainly Australian government focuses on agriculture sector along with beef and dairy farming. On the basis and guidelines provided by international standard ISO 14001, EMS was designed to be applying in every small and large organisation, which affects the environment through their business operation. However, the Australian government discovering its self-capability of achieving those targets of EMS with the purpose of connecting farm-level actions the targets they set for environmental protection in both short and long time period. Australian government and catchment management both regulatory bodies and they are using Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) as the standard for attaining the environmental targets set out in catchment plans (Daddi, et.al, 2016).
Benefits of EMS
The major drawback of Australian environmental management system is that it is process-based system and does not guarantee about the success of this program of its outcome. The effect of institutional pressure on innovation and EMS is also considered because some organisation that operates their business at large scales fear to adopt the changes in environmental rules and regulations. The other countries such as Canada, New Zealand, and the UK found that the advantage of EMS and pre-cursor outlines are unknown while some other author recommended that voluntary environmental management such as EMS would be inefficient to desirable results in Australia and not be successful because it was not verified. Another problem in EMS failure was that the lack of participation of both business organisation and farmers who were not actively involved to make this environmental program successful. The Australian government should focus on and identify the participation of both farmers and business organisations, which are part of the EMS program (Collins, et. al, 2016).
There were three key sets of practices started by Australian government within EMS by agriculturalist groups. These practices are the core of EMS systems and all the rules and regulations of EMS apply to these three groups of practices. The first practice group is ‘both positive and private benefits’ such as for cutting trees for production, excessive use of chemicals, and direct drilling of crops. Practices have optimistic communal net benefits and adverse private benefits, such as gully erosion control, improving biodiversity, etc. Another practice undertaken by the EMS is proper chemical use and waste management, and the proper dumping and disposal of plastics bags and wraps.
Adoption of EMS can advance the management of environmental impacts as well as it improves the economic condition of a farmer along with business organisations. The different industry groups who adopt the EMS system in Australia are Beef production, cropping, cropping, and dairy production. Proper control of environmental activities and supply chain benefits of beef/cotton production are so critical to the success of EMS. The Australian government is focusing on EMS along with a global supply chain of beef production. The EMS framework tries to integrate landholders and farmers with these environmental programs regardless of their current level of engagement with environmental issues and even they do not have any EMS in place (Leung and Yang, 2012). The EMS program focuses on sustainable development in parallel with ecologically sustainable development (ESD) principles in Australian agriculture. The EMS working pattern based on ‘plan, do, check, and act’ that helps in continual improvement in the efforts of environmental management. Agriculture industries in Australia operate under the legislative requirements from all tiers of government, product quality, and safety systems and also consider the marking and branding systems.
Implementing of EMS requires too much money, time, labour, and effort for any enterprise. There are many problems to implement the EMS system in the agriculture sector. Overcoming these limitations will be smoothed by execution of the National Framework. Lack of immediate marketplace benefits by the EMS implementation is currently vague for any business organisation because of fluctuation in the market (Cary and Roberts, 2011). Adoption of EMS can help big landholders to meet changing requirements but it is so insecure about its outcome against the market fluctuation. However, the size of the firm also matters for the EMS, because it is assumed by many experts that EMS is suitable for the only a large business organisation. Lack of information about the environment is also creating problems about the EMS implementation and adoption in the country. Thus, it is necessary for the Australian government about to access the environmental information and provide awareness among the farmers and landholders about EMS and its benefits to them and for the society. They should provide specific guidelines for each industry to adopt and implement the EMS in the organisation as well as in the agriculture sector as well. Another problem in Australia regarding the EMS program is that it is a voluntary program that is going beyond compliance (Lewandowska, 2011). The Australian government failed to make it compulsory to adopt EMS system for every agriculture farmers and industrial sector as well. Although the government has other programs to achieve the essential environmental outcomes if those programs are working together, it will be a voluntary effort that will be more effective.
Conclusion
The EMS in Australian agriculture establishes a cooperative support along with various other government programs and within the voluntary initiatives can develop in support for agricultural farmers, industrialists, and landholders. The EMS program helps in the management of natural resources in coordination and involvement with all the stakeholders, particularly through strategic partnership. The National Framework also supports the EMS in the agriculture sector to identify the roles of farmers, industrialist, landholders, and government and other parties by enabling them systematically manage their natural resources. Under this National Framework, farmers and landholders are able to implement EMS according to their perceived prerequisite, need, capacity, or interest, in a way that contributes to the development of agriculture industry and a sustainable rural future.
References
Cary, J. and Roberts, A. (2011) The limitations of environmental management systems in Australian agriculture. Journal of Environmental Management, 92(3), pp. 878-885.
Collins, A.L., Zhang, Y.S., Winter, M., Inman, A., Jones, J.I., Johnes, P.J., Cleasby, W., Vrain, E., Lovett, A. and Noble, L. (2016) Tackling agricultural diffuse pollution: What might uptake of farmer-preferred measures deliver for emissions to water and air?. Science of the Total Environment, 14(58), pp. 269-281.
Daddi, T., Testa, F., Frey, M. and Iraldo, F. (2016) Exploring the link between institutional pressures and environmental management systems effectiveness: an empirical study. Journal of environmental management, 183(26), pp. 647-656.
de Oliveira, J.A., Silva, D.A.L., Guardia, M., do Nascimento Gambi, L., de Oliveira, O.J. and Ometto, A.R. (2017) How can Cleaner Production practices contribute to meet ISO 14001 requirements? Critical analysis from a survey with industrial companies. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, 19(6), pp. 1761-1774.
ISO (2006) Environmental management — Life cycle assessment — Principles and framework [online]. Available from: file:///C:/Users/System04104/Downloads/2598108_1781728872_ISO14040-2006.PDF [Accessed: 11/09/2018].
Leung, D.Y. and Yang, Y. (2012) Wind energy development and its environmental impact: a review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 16(1), pp. 1031-1039.
Lewandowska, A. (2011) Environmental life cycle assessment as a tool for identification and assessment of environmental aspects in environmental management systems (EMS) part 1: methodology. The international journal of life cycle assessment, 16(2), pp. 178-186.
Nguyen, T.A.H., Ngo, H.H., Guo, W.S., Zhang, J., Liang, S., Lee, D.J., Nguyen, P.D. and Bui, X.T. (2014) Modification of agricultural waste/by-products for enhanced phosphate removal and recovery: potential and obstacles. Bio-resource technology, 169(8), pp. 750-762.
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