March 2005

Jack Of All Trades; Master Of None?

Over the past five years there have been a number of factors that have come together and significantly influenced the management of environmental issues within a large number of organisations. Whether or not the effect of these influences is positive or not remains to be seen, and may not become clear for a further five years.

What are these influencing factors?

Firstly, the environmental agenda has never had more prominence than it has today, with more and more of the general public becoming aware of the issues surrounding climate change and global warming. Industry has also started to feel the financial consequences of the Government’s plans to manage emissions through taxation; the introduction of the climate change levy has had a disproportionate effect on energy intensive industrial sectors with relatively low employee numbers who did not benefit from the reduced national insurance costs that came with the introduction of the levy. As the largest employer, the Government seems to have gained the most from that part of the legislation.

Secondly, the non-stop march of global competition places even more pressure on the UK manufacturing sector who are continually challenged by the supply chain to reduce costs and prices to remain competitive. In many cases, UK manufacturers are trying to remain competitive against overseas competition that do not face the same environmental regulations and associated costs as they do.

Finally, the international standards bodies have harmonised the approach to environmental management systems and quality management systems. The latest ISO 9001 and 14001 standards contain many common elements and have been widely promoted as such.

So, what is the effect of all this?

At first glance it may seem that there is little to connect these three things and at least two of the factors can be seen as highly positive in terms of the prominence of environmental issues and the management of environmental impacts in the UK.

One of the effects of these circumstances is that whilst organisations appreciate that the environment is a major issue, there is a need to reduce costs to remain competitive. Given the commonality of approach between ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, one easy solution is to combine the roles of quality and environmental management within one individual system. Since quality management has a longer history than environmental management, it has inevitably been the quality manager who has taken on the responsibility for implementing environmental management systems rather than the other way round.

The consequence of this is that although many companies have an awareness of environmental issues, they do not have the internal expertise to deal with issues effectively, and progress on reducing environmental impacts is slowed down. Without "expert knowledge" many organisations are not able to gain the benefits they expect from environmental projects and management systems and treat them in exactly the same way as they do quality improvements. Although many of the concepts are similar, the devil is in the detail, and the environmental detail is easily lost.

Growth in environmental consulting

Whilst there has been an effective de-skilling of the role of the environmental manager within small and medium sized organisations in the UK, there has been a continued growth in environmental consultancy. This growth has created a large number of specialists whose skills are in demand by the larger organisation but who are largely unknown to the small and medium sized companies that make up over 80% of the UK economy.

Salaries for environmental professionals have seen dramatic growth in recent years, largely as a result of a shortage of specialist skills, and the substantial growth in job vacancies featured in many publications confirms the growing demand for environmental expertise in the UK. It comes as no surprise that organisations seeking to recruit environmentally-trained staff are finding it increasingly difficult to attract and retain good quality candidates.

However, given what has already happened in the majority of the manufacturing sector, as discussed above, how long can this last and will there be a decline in the availability of specialists in the future? Should this happen, the influence of the professional environmental manager will be further reduced.

The demand for environmentalists in industry will not fall in the coming years given the rapid pace of change driven by new legislation and increasing monitoring requirements for emissions, waste and the way in which land is redeveloped. The issue will be whether smaller organisations will be in a position to afford the help they need.

Integrating Management Systems

As international standards have come closer together in the approach they take, one of the advantages is that companies can take this commonality and integrate their systems to help reduce the burden that multiple management systems can place on an organisation. Couple this with the growth in low cost intranets and online systems, then significant benefits can be gained from integration.

Many companies now have multiple management systems in place. This places a high administrative burden on staff and is time consuming, as well as reducing the time available to dedicate to achieving business goals.

Integrating your management systems to make running them less time consuming and less expensive can be achieved with a little foresight and planning. Providing that a structured approach is taken to the implementation of an overall Integrated Management System (IMS), benefits can be gained. The approach must ensure the correct management of all key aspects of the existing systems, so as to enable the company to function smoothly and achieve its aims.

Implementation of an IMS brings with it a number of benefits:

Reduction in duplication (and therefore the cost of staff time spent running the system).
A consistent streamlined system that is easier for employees to understand and work within.
The opportunity to balance conflicting objectives.
A reduction in the time spent carrying out internal auditing.
Increasing the time available to allow the company to focus on its business goals.

These benefits are only achievable if the people tasked with running and implementing the systems have sufficient knowledge to enable them to do so or have access to that knowledge. The increasing pressures on UK companies highlighted above are making this more and more difficult, as the need to manage the environment is being traded off against the need to save costs. Unless true focus is given to the role of the environmental manager or sufficient support provided to the individual responsible, then we will continue to fail to meet the growing need for improvement across all aspects of the economic community.

Steve Stones is a director of Pro Enviro who are a Knowledge Management consultancy specialising in sustainable development and the integration of management systems. Steve can be contacted at steve.stones@proenviro.co.uk.