EMS National Forum 2007 Feedback

With an impressive line-up of speakers at the EMS National Forum in London, the IEMA’s final conference of the year attracted over 250 delegates and provided an excellent springboard for networking and debating the future role of EMSs. This year the Forum was particularly exercised with the challenges of regulating supply chains overseas, and how EMSs can be used to make a real difference, rather than just ticking boxes.

IEMA Chair Ian Housley welcomed delegates to the conference with an announcement that the Institute’s membership has passed 12,000. He then introduced the chair for the day, Martin Bigg from the Environment Agency.

The first plenary speaker was Tim Yeo MP who chairs the Environmental Audit Committee. He reported on Government’s progress on EMS implementation, and expressed concern about the widespread level of complacency which means that targets for 2020 are unlikely to be met. He called for better reporting and for environmental performance to be given a higher priority within Government departments. Government Estates have a huge environmental impact of their own, but leading by example is also a significant contribution.

The second presentation was from Lord Jamie Lindsay, Chairman of UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service), who spoke about using EMS as a tool for better regulation. He considered the balance required between maintaining standards and reducing administrative burdens. One of Lord Lindsay’s slides was a powerful image – a map of the world showing where emissions are concentrated (unsurprisingly, China stood out as a significant emitter) – and he argued that a good EMS should be able to influence overseas production, treating offshore supply chain companies as if they were manufacturing in the UK.

Ossie Dodds, Chairman of BSI’s technical committee, then launched the ISO 14001 Awards for 2008, which will be presented at the IEMA’s Annual Conference dinner in June. This is the second year of the awards, and there are four categories, open to all UK based, or UK branches of international organisations, with 1 March being the deadline for entries.

After the three presentations, Martin Bigg invited questions to the panel from the floor. The questions covered a range of topics, and included how we can influence the supply chain in the Asia-Pacific Rim, whether the Treasury could exert pressure on organisations to implement EMSs, and how the Government might fare in the BSI awards.

After a coffee break and further opportunity to network and view the exhibition, delegates split into two groups for the focused plenary session: public sector, and business and industry. The public sector group had two local authority presentations – Dr Thomas Knowland from Leeds City Council looked at using EMS to deliver strategic environmental priorities, whilst Bill Purvis from High Peak Borough Council talked about environmental management and value for money. In the business and industry group, Dr Diana Montgomery of the Chemical Industries Association considered implementing REACH using an EMS, and Dr Liz Rogers from BP stressed the importance of making EMS a strategic business issue.

After the lunch break, the workshops in the afternoon were run over two sessions and broken down into four themes – introductory, practitioner, advanced and public sector – allowing delegates to choose the appropriate level for them. Workshop topics included assessment skills for auditors, carbon reduction commitment, building an EMS database on a company intranet, and environmental management and carbon labelling.

Martin Bigg rounded off the day with a closing speech, noting that the challenge for an organisation, in using an EMS, is to go beyond compliance and perform well against industry benchmarks.

Feedback on the Forum was positive, with 82 per cent of delegates rating the conference as good or excellent. Comments included “Very well organised event, good opportunity to meet people to talk about their experiences of EMS. I will go away with a number of practical ideas that I will definitely use”, “Good to see workshops at a more advanced/Full member level” and “The public sector service plenary was over focused on local government”.

Many thanks to all the speakers, workshop presenters and staff who organised this fifth National EMS Forum. Planning is well underway for the 2008 events.

Ruth Lunn
Deputy Editor
the environmentalist’
ruth.lunn@consil.co.uk