Assignment

FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

SBEV3103
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
September 2014

NAME : DEVENDRAN SUNDARARAJAN
MATRIX NO : 890928085847001
COURSE : BOSHM
E MAIL : dave12345@oum@edu.my
CENTRE : PULAU PINANG LEARNING CENTRE

CONTENTS PAGE NO INTRODUCTION 3 - 6

ENVIROMENTAL REGULATORY COMPLIANCE 7 - 11

ENVIROMENTAL RISK MANAGEMENT 11- 13

BUSINESS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 14 -15

CONCLUSION 17

INTRODUCTION It is widely accepted and acknowledged that human factors are the main contributors in pollutions and environmental destruction where the earth’s ecosystem only capable to provide a limited resources and services to regenerate its sources as we are consuming the resources infinitely. So, as the nation’s grow apart the concept of sustainable development has been introduced in early 1970s to 1980s to curb the struggle emerged from the Cold War. There are many definitions of sustainable development present, but the most widely used is
"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

- World Commission on Environment and Development (Oxford University Press), 1987 The history of sustainable development started with the World Commission on Environment and Development which was initiated by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1982 and it was chaired by the Prime Minister of Norway of Harlem Brundtland thus earning the name “Brundtland Commission’. In the years following the Brundtland Commission’s report, they began to work on the unity of environment and development of the earth’s resources. The use of the definition as above has led to many to see sustainable development as major focus on intergenerational equity. The definition by then does not explicitly mention the environment health or its development but it’s rarely quoted in meeting and reports.
Thus, the concern mainly on human needs which are basic and essential -the economic growth but also equity to share resources with the poor. This led to a simple environment management with effective citizen participation around the world as below diagram. This is also known as the milestones for The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were derived from the United Nations Millennium Declaration, adopted by 189 nations in 2000 after lots of improvement done in years of environmental baseline. Figure 1. Definitions of sustainable development
SOURCE: U.S. National Research Council, Policy Division, Board on Sustainable Development, Our Common Journey: A Transition toward Sustainability (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999).

But although interpreted over times peace, freedom, development and the environment remain prominent issue for years. The United Nations Rio20+ in Brazil committed government to create a set of sustainable development goals (SDSs) that would be integrated to a new level and from the follow up from the Millennium development Goals (MDGs) after their deadline which after discussion on how to formulate it in UN headquarters in New York. The main argument was the protection of Earth life support system and poverty reduction become the must priority for SDGs. It is not simply enough to extend MDSs as some are suggested human are transforming the Earth in ways that could undermine the development plan which have been undergo various changes over time decades. So, towards curbing the sustainable development boundaries, the Sustainable Development Goals was created. As mounting research conducted, the stable functioning of Earth system including atmosphere, oceans, forests, waterways and biodiversity cycles, unified framework created with a set of six development goals follow form MDGs with stable conditions necessary to assure the stability of Earth’s system.

Figure 2. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Basically, sustainable development helps to promote the idea that social, environmental and economics are achievable within the limits of our earth natural resources. The sustainable has been overhauled many times to fulfill the needs of future generation as everything in the development world is being connected through space, times and quality of life which means in the term our act can affect other nations throughout. For example, the pesticides sprayed in Malaysia have the potential to harm fish stocks in the coast of Japan. Same goes, clean air practices in one continent will positively affect the air quality in another region across ocean. Thus, sustainability creates and maintains a condition which human and nature can go along in productive environment, fulfilling the requirements of the present and future generation, be it social, economic or other aspects.
Sustainable development has been constantly pursues waysto achieve social and economic progress in ways that will not exhaust the Earth’s natural resources. The urge of needs in world today is real and immediate, but it’s necessary to develop ways to meet these needs that do not disregard the future. The capacity of our ecosystem is not limitless which means that future generations may not be able to meet their needs the way we do now.
Some of the more common examples of sustainable development practices are:
Solar and wind energy. Energy from these resources is limitless, meaning we have the ability to eliminate dependence on non-renewable power sources by harnessing power from renewable resources.
Sustainable construction. Homes, offices and other structures that incorporate recycled and renewable resources will be more energy efficient and withstand the mother nature
Crop rotation. Farmers and gardeners are using this method as a chemical free way to reduce diseases in the soil and increase growth potential of their crops.
Water fixtures. Water conservation is critical to sustainable development, and more and more products are available that use less water in the home, such as showers, toilets, dishwashers and laundry systems.

The world’s resources are getting limited by day, and unnecessary wastage will lead to increased poverty and weakening of the environment. We owe it to future generations to explore lifestyles and paths of development that effectively balance progress with awareness of its environmental impact. In order to preserve the future, we must appreciate the interconnectedness between humans and nature at all levels. Sustainable development practices can help us do this, and through education and building awareness, preserving the future is within everyone’s reach.

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATORY COMPLICANCE

For the past years, environmental law and regulations has been fundamental to government hard work to implement a wide range of environmental programs designed to protect air, water, natural resources, wildlife and public health. Countries from all over the world use environmental law to help address problems such as the discharge of waste toxics into the environment, the protection of flora and fauna, the handling, storage and disposal of solid and hazardous wastes, the usage of pesticides, controlling air contamination, and protecting the quality and accessibility of clean pure water.
Environmental Compliance can be also address as a way to conforming to environmental laws, regulations, act standards and other requirements for a industry to operate on regular basis.. This has led to environmental concerns which have a significant growth in the number and scope of compliance laws across all global regulatory environments. This entire links connected environmental concerns and compliance activities are increasingly being combined and aligned to some level in order to avoid encounters, wasteful overlaps and gaps.
As a result to meet with the above necessities and obligations, certain situations within them must be met. Thus, it is a must to include criteria such as:-
Organizing monitoring programs or schedules, ensuring that the monitoring required in the permit has been done, in precise locations, for the accurate parameters, and at the correct frequency
Assessment on processing activities, performing calculations and validating the data for compliance with any alert or reporting levels
Generating routine compliance reports for authorities as in the Environmental Quality Act 1974

All the above obligation of management can be complex and time consuming, leading to an increasing application of software systems designed to manage environmental compliance and with the help of Environmental Data Management System technology, those task will be more systematic and precise and able to meet the deadline in every quarters.

Figure 3& 4. The Environmental Management Cycle

However, just by having environmental laws in place is not enough to address these problems. Government and authorities must find way to ensure the regulated community meets the requirement and their implementing regulation. So as part of environmental compliance and enforcement, the comprehensive environmental management cycles was created as guideline. This cycle basically help recognize certain environmental problem and thus address the specific approaches to reach the goal.

Awareness and Strategic Planning
The cycles start with awareness of there is an environmental problem and support to address th problem. With the awareness and supports for action, we can begin strategic planning and goal setting. This goal setting may include environmental risk or preventing pollution.

Selecting a Management Approach
Once the goals are set, focus on selecting the most suitable management approaches in order to achieve program goal. It can vary as voluntary, market-based and mandatory.

Developing Effective Requirements
The selected approaches may require specific law and regulation thus some specific practices and procedures needed directly or indirectly to reduce the pollution. Effective requirement demand that’s specific things to be done or outcome reached.

Evaluation and Adjustment
Once the implementation begins, evaluation as an important part needs to be initiated to review the impact of the program through use of the environmental management compliance. Evaluation leads to greater awareness on how good the program is addressing the targeted environmental problem which feedback to a better planning and implementation.

Strategies to improve the Environmental Regulatory Success

Recently, the government and industry have begun to explore innovative strategies that can seek directly to shape the internal management practices in their section. These new strategies focus squarely on management and seek to provide incentives for firms to develop management practices that in turn can lead to improved environmental benefits. Stated below are some the example:-

Introduce new policies and adjustments to legislation to cut formalities and streamline processes that are focused on strong environmental outcomes.

Develop easy to understand instruction and information material for industrialist and their staff, including guidance on making and assessing uses, complying with the department’s expectations and taking enforcement action.

Collaborate with industry associations, community groups on regulatory matters that affect their members.

Introduction of market-based incentives which will provide clients with greater flexibility to meet their environmental obligations, for example, water quality offsets.

Adopt and learn new technologies and skills, such as innovative remote sensing platforms, to aid identify high risk activities requiring closer on-ground monitoring.

Distribute compliance alerts, prosecution bulletins and other information to clients, industrialist and to the community.

Introduce measurement to calculate the continued improvement in application processing times and industry compliance.

This assessment proved to increase the benefits to both industry and environment as well helping them to reduce the burden of compliance which loss of time, money and precious environment.

Environmental Risk Management Environmental risk management is the next phase on the passage towards sustainable development in industries nowadays. Until the 90s, there was little concern with environmental risks on the part of government, business and societies with a naïve attitude which considered that natural systems had infinite capacity to absorb the pollutants and waste of industrial economies. Various events, such as smog levels in capital, flash flood in cities and burning forests in Asia, began to gradually change public opinion to realize importance of environmental risk to indeed exists and require the attention of risk management systems.
Environmental risk management places a strong emphasis on targeting the problems that could arise and implements a structure of metrics that help with prevention. This practice is used by both public and private sectors of the economy. An organization must establish techniques that manage the uncertainty of its operations, which involves following certain protocol and implementing tools that will ensure conformance to those procedures. These procedures must be applied to daily activities that may be a threat to environmental well-being, as well as overall infrastructure assessment, to eliminate damage to the environment caused by the organization.

Figure 5

Environmental risk assessment can be thought of as containing the following key stages.
Hazard identification
This would typically include identification of the situation that could lead to harm and assessment through scientific method to find out the exposure between pollutant and human health. This step is sometimes also known as problem formulation

Dose Response Assessment
Identification of significances if the hazard was to occur and calculate the quantify relationship between dosage of contaminant and humans health.

Exposure Assessment
Estimation of the magnitude of the hazard from the angle of frequency, duration, time of exposure. This can include consideration of the spatial and temporal scale of the consequences and the time to onset of the consequences.

Strategies to improve the Environmental Risk Management Success

Regulating SMEs
Regulating small and medium enterprise helps to curb and improve their control on environment assessment, conduct EHS assessment to day to day basics.

Education and Training
Conducting seminar and training for those who are in charge of EHS in their section. Proper exposure to environment policies, law and regulation helps to prevent more pollutant in near future.

Facilitating Self-Inspection and Self-Audit
Self-inspection and self-audit promotes continues improvement to enterprise which can led to ‘green star’ award for enterprise which do complete environmental audit or inspection.

Implementing Recycling Program
Techniques such as pollution prevention or recycling are used to translate policy objectives into practice.

Business and Sustainable Development

Business strategies for sustainable development marks the final phase in journey. Business sustainability have often defined as managing all form together which involves process which industries manage their financial, social, environment risk obligation and regulation. Businesses and societies can find approaches that will move towards all three goals - environmental protection, social wellbeing and economic development all at the same time. These three aspects often impact the profits, people and the planet as well because protecting organization’s capital base is widely accepted business principle nowadays and crucial in pursuit of economic, environmental & community benefits, we have to consider long-term interests & needs of stakeholders. To achieve the sustainable development potential, it must well planned and strategic to meet the requirement of modern nature. The main priority is to achieve a win- win situation which can achieve environmental quality, increase wealth & enhance competitive advantage. This can result in new business proposal with reduced harm impacts, improved financial plan and increased reputation among worldwide stakeholders. To achieve those successes, there are seven well-planned strategies should be implanted to ease the burden of industrialist. Perform a stakeholder analysis
This analysis helps to set out the issues, concerns and information needs of the stakeholders. Numerous laws and regulations have increases their concern on earning the profits they should. So, identifying these parties is crucial as a central component for sustainable development and greater corporate victory.

Set sustainable development policies and objectives
Next step is to communicate the basic standards that the enterprise expects its employees to follow with respect to sustainable development, and to set targets for operating performance.

Design and execute an implementation plan
Making a plan for the management system changes are needed in order to achieve sustainable development objectives. Implementing sustainable development policies into operational terms is a major job that will affect the entire organization because it’s changing the corporate culture and employee attitudes and defining their new responsibilities.

Develop a supportive corporate culture
A supportive corporate culture employees not only generates practical ideas, but also increases enthusiasm for the sustainability programme itself. Customers and employees needs to be enjoying being part of an organization that is committed to operating in a socially responsible manner.

Develop measures and standards of performance
These measures will help evaluate the performance in future which will be influenced by the company’s sustainable development objectives, and by standards that have been recognized by government and other public agencies.

Preparing meaningful reports
A reporting system that provides a meaningful picture of a company’s sustainability achievements and strengthening relationship and accountability among stakeholder groups.

Enhance internal monitoring processes
Implementing an environmental auditing programme and holding regular meetings with subordinates to review reports will enhance the sustainability development

The Relationship Between Stages in Sustainable Development

It is assumed that the concept of sustainable living began in the 19th century, long before solar panels, geothermal energy, and renewable energy were even thought. The necessity for a sustainable development became more obvious as cities began to grow and resources began to weaken in quantity and value. To achieve the sustainable living in Malaysia, various stages have been implemented from the regulatory compliance mode, environmental risk management and to the last stage, achieving sustainable living.
In the early phase of the journey, the need of to comply with environmental regulations drives improvements in environmental performance by creating a more lawfully and regulated behaviors of companies and stakeholders towards beginning the sustainable living in Malaysia. In the next stage, people and stakeholder began to adopt a more proactive approach by assessing environmental risks thus reducing environmental liabilities and minimize cost of regulation compliance. As final stage the sustainable business and living, significant number of companies recognize that the implementation of sustainable business strategies can lead to new opportunities to Malaysia’s nature.

Conclusion

As we go through various stages in achieving sustainability in modern world, environment is just a one of the components embedded in the concept of sustainability development because we all know society and economy are equally important too as people realized a healthy environment only does not pose a prosperous society or a healthy economy.
But, ensuring environmental protection implies reducing adverse effects but allowing our future generations to inherit the same amount of natural, social and economic wealth as their predecessors. For example, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDTs) are harmful substances that been removed from business process and product in many countires. This removal proved all these years that journey towards sustainable living is a hard pain work yet achievable. Sustainable development provides an approach to making better decisions on the issues that affect all of our lives. The way we approach development affects everyone but the impacts of our decisions as a society have very real consequences for people 's lives.

References

Grigg, David, Sustainable development goals for people and planet (2013). Macmillan Publisher Limited

Robert W. Kates, Thomas M. Parris, and Anthony A. Leiserowitz, 2005 Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, (Volume 47) Paris Publications.
Neil Gunningham, BEYOND COMPLIANCE: NEXT GENERATION ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION (Sept 3 2002) Regulatory Institutions Network

Economic and Social Affairs. Indicator of Sustainable Development (October 2007) United Nations.

Cary Coglianese and Jennifer Nash 2004. Leveraging the Private Sector:
Management-Based Strategies for Improving Environmental Performance [2014, January 21]

References: Grigg, David, Sustainable development goals for people and planet (2013). Macmillan Publisher Limited Robert W. Kates, Thomas M. Parris, and Anthony A. Leiserowitz, 2005 Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, (Volume 47) Paris Publications. Neil Gunningham, BEYOND COMPLIANCE: NEXT GENERATION ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION (Sept 3 2002) Regulatory Institutions Network Economic and Social Affairs. Indicator of Sustainable Development (October 2007) United Nations. Cary Coglianese and Jennifer Nash 2004. Leveraging the Private Sector: Management-Based Strategies for Improving Environmental Performance [2014, January 21]