CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION 129
5.2 Current Status in the Implementation of EMS 131
This study collected employees' opinions regarding the current status of the implementation of EMS by the manufacturing industries in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and asked a question about whether their organization has an EMS in place and noticed that 66.9% of employees strongly agreed that their organisation has an environmental management system in place. Additionally, the question also asked the respondent about the attainment of EMS certification under ISO -14001 and noticed that 67.6% of employees strongly agreed that their company’s EMS is certified to ISO 14001. The study also gathered data on their department's environmental and health safety facility, finding that 64.6% of employees strongly agreed that there is an Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) department at the facility. Figure 5.1 shows the current status of EMS implementation - Part 1.
Figure 5.1: Current status of EMS implementation – Part 1
In addition to this, the study also examined the accountability of top management for the implementation of EMS and discovered that 55.4% of employees strongly agreed that top management is responsible for EMS implementation, and 51.8% of employees strongly agreed that top management is effectively implementing the environmental policy.
Furthermore, the study also analyzed the seriousness of employers in reporting EMS performance and found that 43.4% of the employees strongly agreed with their employer is serious about EMS performance reporting.
Furthermore, 43.4% of the employees agreed that their employer is serious about EMS performance reporting, and 56.6% of the employees strongly agreed with the statement that the company is maintaining compliance to legal requirements. When the above results were compared to the literature review, it was discovered that awareness of EMS among people that have led the organisation to adopt EMS for increasing the satisfaction level of
customers. (Deepak et al., 2015). In addition to this, industries in the countries such as Malaysia and Italy also adopt EMS into their work processes due to the benefits to the environment, greater support from the top management, cost reduction, waste reduction, and increased client base (Gargano, 2017). Figure 5.2 highlights the current status of EMS implementation – Part 2.
Figure 5.2: Current status of EMS implementation – Part 2
The data was also collected based on the targets and objectives that have been established by the companies by covering all the significant aspects and observed that 44%
of the respondents from the selected population have agreed with their company has set objectives and action plans for all the environmental impacts. Furthermore, the study focused on employers who are providing the resources needed for the EMS to continue to improve and found that 42.3% of the targeted population strongly agreed that their employer is
providing the resources needed for the EMS to continue to improve. On the other hand, 35.4% of the sample population strongly disagreed with their employer isn't really taking action to acquire the necessary competence for the implementation of EMS and 39.6% of the respondents from the selected population agreed with, “All employees are not aware of the implementation of EMS.” Figure 5.3 indicates the current status of EMS implementation – Part 3.
Figure 5.3: Current status of EMS implementation – Part 3
In addition to this, the study also acquired the opinion of the respondents about the awareness of the company EMS policy and found that 34.9% of the respondents from the selected population strongly disagreed that employees are not fully aware of the company’s environmental policy and 53.7% has strongly agreed that employees are aware of the significant environmental aspects arising out of my activities. Additionally, 44.2% of the
respondents strongly disagreed with the statement “employees are confused with their roles and responsibility in the implementation of EMS” and 38.7% of employees strongly disagreed that they are not sure about the availability of the EMS documents in their organisation. To examine the operational control procedure to manage the EMS aspects, 35.8% of employees strongly disagreed that they do not know about the operational control procedures for managing the significant environmental aspects and 61.7% of employees strongly agreed that they can follow the emergency response plan in case of any potential emergency. While comparing the above outcomes with the literature review, it was found that the firms with internal motivation (need to improve environmental condition) had auditing in check which positively ensured improvement of EMS application and led to more benefits as compared to external motivation. Internal motives, therefore, encouraged improvement-oriented auditing and implementation of ISO certification (Prajogo et al., 2016).
The study also examines the role who regularly monitoring, and measuring environmental performance and found that 45.1% of employees strongly agreed that their employer is regularly monitoring and measuring the environmental performance and 48.2%
agreed with, ‘Non-compliance issues are identified in the EMS implementation.’
Additionally, the study also examined the role of the employer while conducting the internal audit regularly and observed that 48.8% of employees strongly agreed with their employer is conducting the internal audit at regular intervals at least once a year and 44.8% strongly agreed that the top management is conducting the review meeting at least once in a year to ensure the effectiveness of the EMS implementation’ and 46.5% has strongly agreed with their employer is committed to the continual improvement of EMS to enhance the
environmental performance and 38.9% of employees strongly disagreed that their company is not taking necessary corrective and preventive actions to rectify the non-conformances.
The study also examined the implementation of EMS strictly at their company and found that 47.4% of employees agreed that EMS is implemented strictly in their company and 41.5% of employees agreed that all employees are involved in the implementation of EMS. When the above results were compared to the literature review, it was discovered that the practices for overcoming the challenges in implementing EMS and found that EMS and environmental technologies can collaborate for better implementation. Firms adopting EMS along with the 2 environmental technologies, which are, externality- reducing technologies and efficiency- increasing technologies acquired high turnover by using energy inputs.
Hence, the area of using environmental technologies is not well explored, and more details on the functionalities of the suggested technologies would be needed (Ozusaglam et al., 2018).