CC BY
86
Environmental Management Problems
M.V. Gladkova, K.O. Shayakhmetova, G.I.Baymakhambetova, M.Zh.Tursumbayeva, K.J. Moldashev, A.A. Shynybayev
В статье рассматриваются некоторые проблемы системы экологического контроля в Европейском союзе и мировом сообществе. Освещаются стандарты системы экологического контроля, основателем которой является Соединенное Королевство. Система экологического контроля определяется как часть системы управления, включающая организационную структуру, планирование, процессы, методы, процедуры в тех или иных целях экологической политики. Авторы анализируют особенности процесса взаимодействия между экономическими системами с окружающей средой. Обосновывается вывод, что важнейшим глобальным вызовом является процесс изменения экономической парадигмы устойчивого развития, учитывающий проблемы охраны окружающей среды всего мирового сообщества.
Ключевые слова: экологический контроль, окружающая среда, экономическая парадигма устойчивого развития.
Environmental management can be defined as an internally motivated proactive efficient organization of economic entities (various enterprises, companies, industrial associations and individual entrepreneurs) aiming to achieve their own environmental goals and programs.
The main objective of the environmental management is to reduce the impact on the environment so as to minimize the risk of damage and company's liability [1].The most advanced in this area organizations seek to enter in the rank of the indispensable management principles including of environmental aspects in the company's policy,in all developed and implemented plans and programs.
The United Kingdom can be considered as the leader of the environmental management, where in 1990, a new "Environmental Act» was adopted, after which in 1992 the Standard of environmental management systems BS 7750 [2], prepared and issued by the British Standards Institute in accordance with the request of the British Confederation of Industry, was followed. A feature of this standard was that it did not prescribe and define the requirements for the environmental activities of the enterprise, but included recommendations useful for building an effective environmental management system, for the development of a proactive environmental auditing, which should have an impact on the improvement of the environmental performance of the organization in general. At the initial stage, it was assumed that British companies will voluntarily do their work performance in accordance with the principles of BS 7750. Later other countries joined the United Kingdom, and the standard was the basis for the preparation of international documents on environmental issues, environmental management and environmental auditing.
At the time of adoption of the standard BS 7750 environmental auditing was already well developed area of activity and widely used as the Americas, and Europe. By definition of the United States' Environment Agency, environmental auditing is a systematic, documented, and periodic objective evaluation of implemented activities in the enterprise in terms of compliance with environmental requirements. The auditingprogram can provide tasks such as checking the compliance of the object to the requirements of the environmental legislation, evaluating the effectiveness of existing environmental management system, risk assessment associated with the usage and application of raw materials, waste and processes which are liable to special regulations [3].
The environmental management system is defined as a part of the overall management system that includes organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures (methods), processes and resources for developing, implementing, achieving environmental policy objectives, its revision and correction [4]
In 1993 in the European Union there were issued practical guidance on the implementation of the "Schemes of eco-management and eco-auditing" [5], whose purpose was to provide a stimulus to the use of environmental auditing techniques for an overall evaluation activities of enterprises. Again, it was emphasized that auditing can include not only a review of the environmental legislation requirements, but also evaluation of the effectiveness of solving its own environmental policy of the company. The scheme has been developed in accordance with the Fifth Environmental Action Programme EEC [6], the core of which is the basic principle of sustainable development: "Preventive actions and prevention of adverse effects on the environment and shared responsibility."
Since 1995, European companies have the opportunity to be certified in accordance with EMAS - "Eco-management schemes and environmental auditing."
In 1998, the Non-Governmental Environmental Fund named after V.I.Vernadsky organized an open discussion on the development of activities in the field of environmental management and in particular - the implementation prospects of ISO 14000 "Environmental Management Systems" standards. In the original texts of ISO 14000 environment is defined as an environment in which the organization operates, including air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna, human society and their relationship. Thus, in the context of ISO 14000 environment is understood as the environment surrounding the actual organization (enterprise), and society (people) is considered as an element of the environment, which is, like the other elements, is impacted [4].
In connection with this definition of the environment the company responsible is for the management of the environment in which it operates. This involves the development of an environmental management system, whose operation objectives and results cover environmental aspects of the organization, control issues of environmental impact. Finally, the administration appears to be only one of the components of the management system in the organization.
Questions necessary to develop environmental auditing, environmental management systems and certification of companies on a voluntary basis defined priority directions for the development of international research on these issues, among which were:
• nsuring the availability of ISO 14000 standards, and above all ISO 14001, the requirements of which may be subject to certification;
• Formation of the company's policy to increase the eco-efficiency of production;
• Development of methodological database and the development of voluntary environmental auditing;
• Interaction with regional and local authorities and nature conservation bodies in the development of mutually advantageous conditions for the development of eco-efficient businesses;
• • Development of a dialogue with all stakeholders and exchange of experience;
• Providing adequate training and awareness among businesses, professionals, consultants, government officials, and the public in the field of environmental management.
Despite the voluntary standards, the number of certifying organizations is growing exponentially. Many large enterprises, including transnational corporations, seek to be certified according to ISO 14001, with the result that they will receive a certificate of an independent "third party" that their environmental management systems conform to this standard. [7] The motive for making such decisions for organizations is that the certification will be one of the prerequisites of marketing the product in the international markets. Thus, EU announced its intention to allow the Commonwealth market to ISO-certified companies only.
Among the other motives of environmental management systems implementation and certification can be the following:
• improving the image of the company to comply with the environmental requirements (including environmental regulations);
• saving energy and resources, including allocated to environmental protection measures through better management;
• increase the appraised value of the fixed assets of the enterprise;
• the desire to conquer the markets of "green" products;
• improved management of the company in general;
• interest in attracting highly skilled labor force.
Effective application of the EMAS system began at the end of 1995, when European entrepreneurs joined the system of environmental audits. In March, 1996 there were already 142 EU companies participating in this program.
In 1984, the U.S. Environmental Protection National Agency (EPA) has developed a concept for the audit of federal agencies, most of which already had its own program of environmental auditsby 1987. For example, the U.S. Department
of Defense and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) carry out environmental audits of their databases and enterprise contractors. U.S. Department of Energy in 1985established the management of the Environmental Audit and legislation and audits of its major facilities. During the period of development of environmental auditing in the U.S. the number of companies conducting an audit has increased from a few dozen in the chemical industry and heavy engineering to thousands of companies belonging to all sectors of industry. Currently, the number of such companies is more than 95%. Many U.S. states there is a compulsory environmental auditing in case of real estate sale, including land. Depending on who are auditing - a group of auditors from the company's employees or an independent team of auditors -there are internal and external environmental auditing [8, p. 297].
Currently there are the following international standards of environmental management and environmental audit [5, p. 298]:
• British Standard BS 7750 of British Standards Institute;
• Standard CSAZ 750-94 of Canadian Standards Association;
• Standards for environmental auditing and management of the environment of the International Standardization Organization - ISO 14000 series.
International standards ISO 14000 - this is the first series of international standards on environmental management developed by the International Standardi-zationOrganization (ISO) This organization was established in 1947 to promote the development of standards that facilitate the development of international relations, trade and production. At present, the ISO national committees include 118 countries. According to the International Information Network, which promotes Environmental Management (INEM), in the end of 2000 there were about six thousand firms certified to the requirements of ISO 14000in the international community, more than 600 companies at the request of British standard BS 7750, and about three thousandEU firms certified by the EMAS (European Eco-Management and audit) requirements.
Eco-Management System in accordance with international standards ensures the order and sequence of solutions to their environmental challenges by organizations through resource allocation, assignment of responsibilities and ongoing evaluation of methods, procedures and processes. The structure, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources for implementing environmental policy and environmental objectives of the company are coordinated with the work in other areas, particularly in the areas of production management, finance, quality, and overall security of the organization.
The concept of ecological culture in general and industrial environmental culture in particular, are quite complex. One of the most characteristic demonstrations of the ecological culture of industrial production is environmental management.
The scientific rationale for the choice of environmental priorities should be based on [9, p. 30]:
1) Postulates of sustainable development concept
2) Environmental Ethics, which prohibits exploit the natural resources without following the standards of environmental safety;
3) The results of interdisciplinary researches on the effectiveness and environmental safety of the technologies.
The solution of the problem is possible if to take into considerationin the indicator of company's performancethe environmental damage caused by:
• The negative impact of company's activities on the quality of the environment and natural resources at local, regional and global levels, which can be measured in monetary terms;
• The growing trend of global change in the quality of the environment (climate change, the violation of the biogeochemical cycles of chemical elements, the loss of biological diversity, mutations, etc.)
The main difficulty in the implementation of cleaner production is the correct selection of price criteria for the valuation of the environment quality, which can be used in the preparation of business plans and in decision-making on the allocation of investment and loans. Essentially we are talking about the formation of a common parameter space, which allows to evaluate the environmental and economic interaction. This problem was solved by integrating the economic damage through the categories of environmental risk [10, p. 113]:
Yi (H) = RiDi (1)
where, Yi (H) - the damage done;
Ri - risk as a measure of the likely hazards, set for a particular object in the form of potential losses over time;
Di - book value of i - th object.
The value of environmental risk caused by different types of human impact is calculated as the probability of death of the biological system (organism, population, people population) over time. The allowable level of environmental risk is a reciprocal value of the natural duration of a biological system existence with a safety factor of 0.1 for the biota, which are a set of plants, animals and microorganisms with a common area of distribution, and 0.01 for the population. The value of environmental risk is an integral measure of the quality of the environment, as it allows generalizing the results of observations and laboratory tests carried out in the various scientific disciplines (biology, toxicology, monitoring for quality of the environment).
One way to assess the environmental and economic damage is the account of the market reaction to changes in the characteristics of the environment that may be caused by:
• Changes in the quantity and quality of products and the increase in costs of production;
• The impact on human health (loss for company due to illness and the death of the population);
• The costs of prevention and rehabilitation of environmental measures.
In some cases there is a need for rehabilitation of the quality of the environment, the degradation of which is due to the activities of other financial and industrial groups that are working in other regions, including overseas.
An indirect method of estimating the size of the environmental damage is taken into account changes in the "implicit" market assessments of the quality of life. To justify the valuation costs for environmental security it is necessary to use the results of studies on the evaluation of spatial and temporal variability in integrated environmental quality criteria (the value of environmental risk).
Proponents of globalization argue that people get a great opportunity to improve their life if they have access to labor markets and / or capital.
However, this approach entrenches the existing world order, where each of the inhabitants of industrialized countries consumes natural resources in the 10 - 20 times more than people in developing countries. As you know, the aggravation of the global environmental crisis caused by the international division of labor in which [11]:
• Industrialized countries supply at high prices high technology products;
• The rest countries are the sources and manufacturers of raw materials for the developed countries at low prices.
According to the current world price policy, the ratio of the unit cost of natural resources and technology still 1:20 and more. Thus, developing countries will always be indebted to industrialized countries, in which the rate of natural resources consumption is continuously increasing, which means that one of the conditions of contemporary globalization is the exploitation of foreign territories by transnational companies. The main tools to gain access to the management of foreign natural resources are the investments and technology. This increases the intensity of exploitation of natural resources and the extent of human impact on the quality of the environment.
To resolve the problems of the environmental situation the foreign investors should be involved for rehabilitation projects. The realization of environmental projects should be carried out with the latest technologies that have passed the certification procedure in accordance with international standards. Systematic approach to the management of natural resources and the quality of the environment is to examine the various aspects of a green economy.
When setting the priorities for natural resources it is necessary to determine the boundary conditions for the operation of various types of resources:
• For renewable resources the cost value of resource consumption reproduction can be accepted as a lower limit of consumption;
• For non-renewable resources such boundary can be the size of the planned costs for the development of methods to replace the products with similar consumer value.
Feature of the present process of interaction between the economic systems with natural environment is a growing negative impact of the following factors:
• The domination of man-made type of development,
• The strengthening of human influence on the biosphere,
• Population growth,
• Insufficient mechanisms for integrating environmental consequences of economic activity, etc.
As a result of foregoing, it can be concluded that the most important global challenge is the process of changing the economic paradigm with the concept of sustainable developmentoriented to the solution of sustainable development problem and taking into account the environmental problems of the world community.
Literature
1. Croner's Environmental Management. Croner's Publications. Kingston-upon-Thames, 1993.
2. British Standard for Environmental Management Systems BS 7750. British Standard Institute, 1992.
3. Bregman, J.I., Kelley, C., Melchor, J.R. (1996). The environmental compliance handbook.
4. ISO 14050. Environmental management - Vocabulary (1996). ISO/TC/207SC 6.
5. The eco-management and audit scheme: a practical guide / by Ruth Hillary (1993). Technical Communications Publishing.
6. EC's 5th Action Programme: Towards Sustainability (1993-2000).
7. International Environmental Systems, 1998, volume 5, # 6.
8. Muldahmetova, D.S., Kishkenebayeva, A.O.,Turganbekova, A., and Kitueva, S.B."Environmental audit on oil and gas enterprises (on the materials of Kazakhstan)" // International scientific-practical conference dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Strategy-2030 "Comprehensive accelerated modernization of the economy of Kazakhstan and Central Asia: Present and Prospects." - Almaty: Kazak universiteti. - Part 1. - 2007. - 380 p. (Pp. 295-299).
9. Anikiyev, ^^/'Environmental priorities of society and achievements ways" / "Environmental adaptation of the society in the former Soviet space," Moscow 2000 "Interbuk - business," p. 28 -31.
10.Rumina, E.V."Analysis of environmental and economic interactions", Moscow: "Science", 2000. - 159 p.
11.E.U. von Wiezsacker. Earth Politics. - Berlin: Springer, 1994. - 450 p.
