Auditing for environmental excellence at union carbide

Union Carbide formed its current Health, Safety, and Environmental Audit Program in 1985 following the Bhopal, India, tragedy in December 1984. Although our pre-Bhopal record confirmed our belief that we had an excellent program, with the help of a consulting firm we went back to the drawing board and questioned everything. We raised the bar and set as one of our goals the development and implementation of an audit program that is “second to none”. This article details the specific tools being used by Union Carbide auditors to ensure environmental excellence at our numerous plant sites.     

Total quality product design—how to integrate environmental criteria into the product realization process

Recent case studies on the financial benefits of pollution prevention programs well attest to the notion that a commitment to the environment can help profitability not only by avoiding costs and potential liabilities, but also by generating environmentally-based opportunities for competitive advantage. Achieving these benefits, however, represents a complex management challenge that requires embedding environmental concerns in the day-to-day decisions and actions of a company'S employees. This article shows how the marriage of corporate environmental stewardship and TQM, better known as TQEM, is particularly well suited to the area of product design and why environmental health and safety experts can improve a product'S environmental performance.     

Industrial ecology—an organizing framework for environmental management

Industrial ecology is a systemic organizing framework for the many facets of environmental management. It views the industrial world as a natural system, embedded in local ecosystems and the global biosphere. It provides a fundamental understanding of the value of modeling the industrial system on ecosystems to achieve sustainable environmental performance. In this article, the author shows how it offers powerful tools of analysis that complement and enhance those offered by such approaches as Total Quality Environmental Management or pollution prevention.     

Pursuing environmental excellence for competitive advantage: Whirlpool's super-efficient refrigerator

Environmental advocates, as well as the environmental professionals in industry, are exploring a new opportunity to motivate improvements to environmental management systems. This new opportunity arises from the possible link between environmental excellence and competitive advantage. When this link exists in a given industry or market, the business person's enthusiasm for environmental initiatives is much greater. However, this link is not present unless a company's key customers consider environmental performance and product environmental characteristics when making purchasing decisions. There are a number of reasons to pursue environmental excellence, but it is not correct to assume that competitive advantage will automatically occur. This article discusses the conditions that are necessary to achieve the link between environmental excellence and competitive advantage. Whirlpool's success in winning the $30 million Super Efficient Refrigeration Program (SERP) competition will also be discussed as a test case for determining whether environmental excellence can lead to competitive advantage in the appliance industry.     

Achieving environmental excellence through TQEM strategic alliances

Generally speaking, today's TQEM initiatives do not improve a firm's activities beyond the shipping dock and onto consumer and postconsumer use and reuse. Although internal TQEM efforts do improve environmental impacts of a firm's operations, most firms remain focused on the traditional bottom-line objective of increasing throughput. For these reasons, most firms implementing TQEM miss the many opportunities to improve environmental performance (including cost and quality) through asset recovery, resource sharing, and reuse. However, by taking the advantages of teamwork beyond corporate boundaries, firms can close the loop on environmental improvements. Inter-firm teaming for environmental advantage, which we define as TQEM alliancing, initiates a cyclical approach to environmental performance improvement. It does so by forging strategic relationships among firms that can leverage each other's environmental weaknesses. TQEM allying is a round-robin game plan. In this article, the authors show how it allows firms to take their environmental improvement initiatives beyond regulatory compliance (and into proactivity), beyond pollution control (to total pollution avoidance), and beyond profitability (for a quantitative as well as qualitative bottom line), because firms will be integrating external as well as internal functions across different business domains.     

Kodak's safety performance indexing—a tool for environmental improvement

Safety performance has a direct effect on employees' productivity and quality of work life, and on company profits and image in the community. Enormous human and financial losses can result from poor safety performance, and all such losses are preventable. To prevent these potential losses, safety performance must be continually improved across all levels of the organization. Effective safety programs are the key to improved safety performance. But how do we know when a safety program is effective? How can we measure safety performance and set goals for improvements? How can we track progress toward these goals? This article demonstrates how a powerful performance management tool —performance indexing— can be used to help improve safety performance throughout your company. This tool can also be used to measure, track, and improve environmental and occupational health performance.     

Certification of environmental management systems—for iso 9000 and competitive advantage

ISO 9000 has become the buzzword of many industries worldwide as they strive to gain competitive advantage by registering their quality systems. At the same time, environmental performance and improvement is becoming increasingly important in the global marketplace. Work has begun to integrate these two important concepts into a new one: certification of environmental management systems. This article explains the new standard and why companies need to recognize and react to their international environmental impact.     

Strategic environmental management in Pennsylvania—new tools for moving beyond compliance

Editor's Note: The following position paper recently released by Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection inaugurates a new column in EQM that will be devoted to exploring the issues, positions, and controversies involving state enforcement policies and actions. We welcome your responses to these columns that will examine how the states are approaching and managing their environmental responsibilities and how various stakeholder groups will be affected.     

Questions and answers. TQEM performance indicators—how do you measure up?

I have seen a number of corporations accept the philosophy of TQEM and start the process of total quality environmental management with great enthusiasm. I believe that many organizations are attracted because TQM principles demand measurements of success and results that are definable for the environment. It reduces the emotionalism that frequently tends to surround environmental issues. Emotionalism has perhaps been the bane and boon of efforts by corporations and advocacy groups to incorporate environmental issues into the day-to-day functions of organizations. Abt Associates, a well-known research-based consulting firm, recently completed a study of U.S. Fortune 250 firms' environmental management programs. Abt found evidence that environmental performance is a competitive issue. Benchmarking is hotly pursued to develop firm-wide indices of performance. One third of the benchmarking is against competition, another third is against worldwide firms. There is a race to develop “Best in Class” standards now. E2M and Abt Associates have combined resources to study corporate Canada's environmental management programs and compare these with those of the United States. This research will help companies benchmark activities and will build a strong North American data base. Unfortunately it will not be ready in time to answer TQEM's question for this issue. (The study results will be released to participating companies in Fall 1992.)     

Investigation of an Escherichia coli environmental benchmark for waterborne pathogens in agricultural watersheds in Canada

Canada's National Agri-Environmental Standards Initiative sought to develop an environmental benchmark for low-level waterborne pathogen occurrence in agricultural watersheds. A field study collected 902 water samples from 27 sites in four intensive agricultural watersheds across Canada from 2005 to 2007. Four of the sites were selected as reference sites away from livestock and human fecal pollution sources in each watershed. Water samples were analyzed for Campylobacter spp., Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli O157:H7, Cryptosporidium spp., Giardia spp., and the water quality indicator E. coli. The annual mean number of pathogen species was higher at agricultural sites (1.54 ± 0.07 species per water sample) than at reference sites (0.75 ± 0.14 species per water sample). The annual mean concentration of E. coli was also higher at agricultural sites (491 ± 96 colony-forming units [cfu] 100 mL(-1)) than at reference sites (53 ± 18 cfu 100 mL(-1)). The feasibility of adopting existing E. coli water quality guideline values as an environmental benchmark was assessed, but waterborne pathogens were detected at agricultural sites in 80% of water samples with low E. coli concentrations (<100 cfu 100 mL(-1)). Instead, an approach was developed based on using the natural background occurrence of pathogens at reference sites in agricultural watersheds to derive provisional environmental benchmarks for pathogens at agricultural sites. The environmental benchmarks that were derived were found to represent E. coli values lower than geometric mean values typically found in recreational water quality guidelines. Additional research is needed to investigate environmental benchmarks for waterborne pathogens within the context of the "One World, One Health" perspective for protecting human, domestic animal, and wildlife health.     

Integrating product quality and environmental performance through innovation—the l'oréal case

Meeting the demands of today's marketplace has become an increasingly complex challenge for corporations in all industries. The consumer is demanding high-quality products, low cost, and more recently, a new variable: environmental performance. Customers will not accept sacrifices in quality or cost to help businesses meet regulatory requirements or develop environmentally sound products. They want it all. Consequently, companies are faced with the complex task of balancing cost, quality, and environmental performance.     

Evaluating your environmental audit—moving beyond band-aids in developing corrective actions

Although audit programs have helped companies make big improvements in performance, more progress is still necessary and available. In this article the authors show how still bigger improvements are possible by expanding the corrective action process and utilizing total quality principles in developing corrective actions and evaluating company performance. With sufficient knowledge about the nature of its problems, not just the degree of its problems, a company should be able to rethink its basic management approaches and achieve dramatic improvements in performance.     

Sustainable management of demolition waste—an integrated model for the evaluation of environmental, economic and social aspects

A model is presented for evaluating waste management systems for their contribution to a sustainable development, including environmental, economic and social aspects. The model was tested in a case-study, where groups of long-term unemployed people were offered both education on environmental issues and practical work with the recovery and recycling of building and demolition waste as a form of vocational development. Application of the suggested model revealed the overall effects on sustainability of different methods of waste management. In addition, negative aspects of the systems analysed were identified, which led to discussions about possible improved practices within the waste management systems. Two of the waste management systems investigated (the recycling of steel and re-use of sanitary porcelain) showed a potential contribution to sustainable development in all of the aspects studied. Preparing bricks for re-use showed the largest potential for eco-efficiency, but had negative effects on sustainability from the social perspective of health and the working environment. The possibility of further use of the model and the remaining obstacles to such analyses are discussed. One observation is that the data collection needed to perform this kind of sustainability analysis is resource-demanding, and that it would therefore be better to identify a smaller number of key indicators.     

How to integrate information strategy planning with environmental management information systems—part I

Rational, cost-effective provision of mission-critical environmental management information remains elusive for almost all large enterprises. Even among the best performing companies—best performing from the perspectives of profitability, quality and/or environmental stewardship—environmental management information systems (EMIS) are usually comprised of dozens to hundreds of individual, isolated applications that require costly data capture, training, and maintenance. This article, the first of two, will discuss ways to coordinate information infrastructures with strategic goals and business processes.     

On how environmental stringency influences adoption of best management practices in agriculture

There are relatively few Federal environmental regulations that influence agricultural production in the US. However, many local and state environmental rules may influence the management practices on US farms as might interactions between urban population centers and agricultural producers. Detailed analysis of corn farms gives insight into these relationships and suggests that stringent environmental regulations could increase the likelihood of adoption of certain conservation practices, all else being constant, but that the interaction between urban populations has less of an effect on the adoption decisions.     

Water Dispatch Model for Middle Route of a South‐to‐North Water Transfer Project in China1

Chang, Jian‐xia, Yi‐min Wang, and Qiang Huang, 2011. Water Dispatch Model for Middle Route of a South‐to‐North Water Transfer Project in China. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 47(1):70‐80. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2010.00478.x Abstract: The objective of this paper is to present a simulation model to address the water dispatch problem of the south‐to‐north water transfer project for the Middle Route system in China. Reasonable rules and a system network structure are established. This model consists of five modules: (1) a data‐processing module, (2) an initial control module, (3) a multisource simulation dispatch module, (4) a system identification module, and (5) a revision module. Water allocated to each province and city along the route is obtained by simulation, and the long‐term operation results show that water supply reliabilities are significantly improved if the transferred water is jointly dispatched with the local water resources.     

Environmental culture change in local government: a practised perspective from the international council for local environmental initiatives—Australia/New Zealand>

Environmental culture change, a seemingly intangible concept, is fast becoming an important indicator of success for organisations delivering sustainable development around the globe. This article provides an analysis of local government's ability to affect culture change within its organisations and communities, and the role the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives—Australia/New Zealand (ICLEI-A/NZ) has in assisting local government with this process. While the impact ICLEI-A/NZ has had on the culture change movement is difficult to define, the methodologies adopted by the organisation have been designed to institutionalise the integration of environmental decision-making concepts and practices in local government. This article discusses the degree to which ICLEI-A/NZ's capacity-building campaigns and other performance-focused initiatives have instilled core environmental values in local government.