Environmental management
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Environmental Management is not, as the phrase suggests, the management of the environment as such but rather the management of the humankind's interaction with and impact upon the environment. The need for environmental management can be viewed from a variety of perspectives. A more common philosophy and impetus behind environmental management is the concept of carrying capacity. Simply put, carrying capacity refers to the maximum number of organisms a particular resource can sustain. The concept of carrying capacity, whilst understood by many cultures over history, has its roots in Malthusian theory. A common example of the consequences of exceeding the carrying capacity of an area is the starvation and eventual cannibalism of tribes on the Easter Islands after the depletion of the island's resources. Environmental management is therefore not the conservation of the environment solely for the environment's sake, but rather the conservation of the environment for humankind's sake. This element of sustainable exploitation, getting the most out of natural assets, is visible in the French approach to water resources.
Environmental management involves the management of all components of the bio-physical environment, both living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic). This is due to the interconnected and network of relationships amongst all living species and their habitats. The environment also involves the relationships of the human environment, such as the social, cultural and economic environment with the bio-physical environment.
As with all management functions, effective management tools, standards and systems are required. An environmental management standard or system or protocol attempts to reduce environmental impact as measured by some objective criteria. The ISO 14001 standard is the most widely used standard for environmental risk management and is closely aligned to the European Eco Management & Audit Scheme (EMAS). As a common auditing standard, the ISO 19011 standard explains how to combine this with quality management. The UK has developed a phased standard (BS8555) that can help smaller companies move to ISO 14001 in six manageable steps.
Other environmental management systems tend to be based on this standard and to extend it in various ways:
- The Natural Step focuses on basic sustainability criteria and helps focus engineering on reducing use of materials or energy use that is unsustainable in the long term
- Natural Capitalism advises using accounting reform and a general biomimicry and industrial ecology approach to do the same thing
- US Environmental Protection Agency has many further terms and standards that it defines as appropriate to large-scale EMS
- The UN and World Bank has encouraged adopting a "natural capital" measurement and management framework.
- The European Union Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)
Other strategies exist that rely on making simple distinctions rather than building top-down management "systems" using performance audits and full cost accounting. For instance, Ecological Intelligent Design divides products into consumables, service products or durables and unsaleables - toxic products that no one should buy, or in many cases, do not realize they are buying. By eliminating the unsaleables from the comprehensive outcome of any purchase, better environmental management is achieved without "systems".
