Assessing The Impact Of Environmental Management Systems On Corporate And Environmental Performance

Environmental Science & Policy 5 (2002) 443–448

Implementation of standardised environmental management systems in Swedish local authorities: reasons, expectations and some outcomes
Sara Emilsson∗ , Olof Hjelm1
Environmental Technique and Management, Linköpings Universitet, 58183 Linköping, Sweden

Abstract Environmental issues have become increasingly important in Swedish localauthorities during the last decade. This has been shown as almost half of the local authorities are implementing environmental management systems (EMSs) in their organisations as a voluntary commitment to improve their environmental efforts. In the autumn 2000, a national postal survey to learn more about EMS implementation in Swedish local authorities was carried out. The purpose of this paper is toexamine the reasons behind Swedish local authorities’ EMS implementation, what the local authorities expect EMS implementation to bring to their organisations, what environmentally related outcomes they have observed, and how the EMS work is co-ordinated. Although Swedish local authorities often have ambitious plans for EMS implementation, few resources are allocated for this purpose, which means, infact, that EMS implementation is not a high priority. Our study showed that the chief reason for implementing EMSs was of organisational origin (such as bringing order to the environmental efforts), although EMS implementation is often viewed as an environmental project. This paper also discusses the problems surrounding the fact that EMSs are viewed as projects and not as continuous processes thatare integrated into the organisation. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Local authority; Environmental management system (EMS); EMAS; ISO 14001

1. Introduction Since the United Nations’ conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, local authorities in Sweden have shown an increased interest in voluntary environmental commitments in order to decrease the negativeenvironmental impacts caused by their organisations and activities, and to further the process of sustainable development (Brundin and Eckerberg, 1999). A considerable number of tools, all with more or less different approaches, are available for the purpose of making the organisations more environmentally proactive and efficient. These tools can provide the organisations with information about theenvironmental situation, help improving the structure of environmental work and support the environmental decision-making process. Substance flow analysis, strategic environmental assessments, environmental impact assessment, life cycle assessment, and standardised environmental management systems (EMSs) are just a few of the tools available for these purposes. These tools may improve the work directed atsustainable development, as they elucidate various aspects of the environmental perspective. However, it
Corresponding author. Tel.: +46-13-28-66-02; fax: +46-13-12-25-87. E-mail addresses: sarem@ifm.liu.se (S. Emilsson), olohj@ifm.liu.se (O. Hjelm). 1 Tel.: +46-13-28-56-47; fax: +46-13-12-25-87.
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is important to remember that none of them represents a universal solution, thus other strategies,tools and methods that include political, social and economic components should be used as well to fully address sustainability (Steger, 2000). This paper focuses on one of the above mentioned tools: EMSs. There are different types of environmental management systems, and standardised EMSs are designed according to the principles of the international standard ISO 14001, the EC regulationeco-management and audit scheme (EMAS) or any that are similar to them. The main purpose of this type of EMS is to organise environmental work in such a way that an organisation’s environmental performance improves on a continual basis. To achieve this goal, the organisation maps its environmental impact and identifies the significant environmental aspects of its organisation in an environmental review...