Comparison and review of Environmental Management Systems among the government institutions in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The organizations in the world have been suffering from various types of environmental problems in the recent past due to their activities, products and services. Environmental Management System (EMS) is a comprehensive tool to assess and ensure the mitigation of environmental issues. EMS is a part of the overall management system that includes organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, and resources for developing, implementing, achieving, reviewing, and maintaining the environmental policies. EMS follows Stewart and Deming‟s quality management approach. EMS ensures positive environmental impacts, improves product quality, competitiveness and production process, reduce expenses, liabilities, insurance premiums, and waste management cost and enhance market responsiveness. The objective of this research is to compare the performance of EMS among the government institutions in Sri Lanka. Ten Divisional Secretariat offices in Kurunegala district in the North Western Province in Sri Lanka have been selected for the purpose. Interviews of key informants were the main source of primary data under six EMS criteria, namely, commitment and environmental policy, planning, implementation, measurements and evaluation, audit and review. SPSS and MS Excel were used for data analysis. There was a considerable variation among the institutions. The researcher found that the success level of the implementation of EMS is positively correlated with leadership qualities. Generally, the implementation of EMS in government institutions is weak and performance rank order illustrated that the major weaknesses were lack of awareness of the EMS among the employees, poor auditing, lack of EMS training, and lack of condign attitudes. EMS should be launched to improve the EMS training in order to minimize negative environmental impacts and to provide effective service to the public.