Industrial Environmental Management

Engineering, Science, and Policy

Tapas K. Das

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781119591566
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique en matière d'environnement et d'énergie

Provides aspiring engineers with pertinent information and technological methodologies on how best to manage industry's modern-day environment concerns

This book explains why industrial environmental management is important to human environmental interactions and describes what the physical, economic, social, and technological constraints to achieving the goal of a sustainable environment are. It emphasizes recent progress in life-cycle sustainable design, applying green engineering principles and the concept of Zero Effect Zero Defect to minimize wastes and discharges from various manufacturing facilities. Its goal is to educate engineers on how to obtain an optimum balance between environmental protections, while allowing humans to maintain an acceptable quality of life.

Industrial Environmental Management: Engineering, Science, and Policy covers topics such as industrial wastes, life cycle sustainable design, lean manufacturing, international environmental regulations, and the assessment and management of health and environmental risks. The book also looks at the economics of manufacturing pollution prevention; how eco-industrial parks and process intensification will help minimize waste; and the application of green manufacturing principles in order to minimize wastes and discharges from manufacturing facilities.

• Provides end-of-chapter questions along with a solutions manual for adopting professors
• Covers a wide range of interdisciplinary areas that makes it suitable for different branches of engineering such as wastewater management and treatment; pollutant sampling; health risk assessment; waste minimization; lean manufacturing; and regulatory information
• Shows how industrial environmental management is connected to areas like sustainable engineering, sustainable manufacturing, social policy, and more
• Contains theory, applications, and real-world problems along with their solutions
• Details waste recovery systems

Industrial Environmental Management: Engineering, Science, and Policy is an ideal textbook for junior and senior level students in multidisciplinary engineering fields such as chemical, civil, environmental, and petroleum engineering. It will appeal to practicing engineers seeking information about sustainable design principles and methodology.

1
Why Industrial Environmental Management?

1.1 Introduction

This introductory chapter addresses why industrial environmental management is important! Environmental management is a very crucial part of human well‐being that needs to be deeply considered. Formulated design seeks to steer the development process to take advantage of opportunities, avoid hazards, mitigate problems, and prepare people for unavoidable difficulties by improving adaptability and resilience. It is a process concerned with human–environment interactions, and seeks to identify: what is environmentally desirable; what are physical, economic, social, and technological constraints to achieving that process; and what are the most feasible options. Actually there can be no concise universal definition of environmental management; however, it can be briefly summarized as supporting sustainable development; demanding multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary or even holistic approaches; it should integrate and reconcile different development viewpoints, co‐ordinate science, engineering, technology, social, policy making and planning; state proactive processes; timescales and concerns ranging from local to global issues; and one stresses stewardship rather than exploitation while dealing with a world affected by humans.

In other perspectives, environmental management can be explained as methods of ways when dealing with issues due to the importance of the need to improve environmental stewardship by integrating ecology, policy making, planning, and social development. The goals include sustaining and (if possible) improving existing resources; preventing and overcoming environmental problems; establishing limits; founding and nurturing institutions that effectively support environmental research, monitoring and management resources; warning of threats and identifying positive change opportunities; (where possible) improving quality of life; and finally, identifying new technology or policies that are useful. And moreover, actually environmental management may be subdivided into a number of fields, including the following:

• Environmental economics
• Sustainable development issues
• Environmental assessment, modeling, forecasting, and “hand‐casting”
• Corporate environmental management activities
• Pollution recognition and control
• Environmental enforcement and legislation
• Environmental and development institutions and ethics
• Environmental management systems and quality issues
• Environmental planning and management
• Assessment of stakeholders involved in environmental management
• Environmental perceptions and education
• Community participation
• Natural resources management
• Environmental rehabilitation
• Environmental politics
• Environment aid and institution building

Generally, the environmental managers must ensure there is optimum balance between environmental protection and allowing human liberty. Then, the question is “how it can be done?” Basically, there are several steps in environmental management implementation. First, we need to identify goals and define problems, then determine appropriate actions, which will be continued as draw‐up plan. Next, implement the plan, which will be followed by ongoing development management. After that monitor and evaluate the situation. If there are adjustments needed, do it. Then finally when the exact model and standards of environmental management are generated, continuous development will be conducted.

The overall objective of environmental management is improved human life quality. It involves the mobilization of resources and the use of government to administer the use of both natural and economic goods and services. It is based on the principles of ecology. It uses systems analysis and conflict resolution to distribute the costs and benefits of development activities throughout the affected populations and seeks to protect the activities of development from natural hazards. Conflict identification is one of the most important tasks in environmental management planning and the resolution of conflicts is a fundamental part of what makes up “environmentally sound development. ISO (International Organization for Standardization) 14000 is a family of standards related to environmental management that exists to help organizations (i) minimize how their operations (processes, etc.) negatively affect the environment (i.e. cause adverse changes to air, water, or land); (ii) comply with applicable laws, regulations, and other environmentally oriented requirements; and (iii) continually improve in the above.

1.1.1 ISO in Brief

ISO is the International Organization for Standardization. It has a membership of 160 national standards institutes from countries large and small, industrialized, developing and in transition, in all regions of the world. ISO's portfolio of more than 18 000 standards provides practical tools for all 3 dimensions of sustainable development: economic, environment, and societal.

ISO standards for business, government, and society as a whole make a positive contribution to the world we live in. They ensure vital features such as quality, ecology, safety, economy, reliability, compatibility, interoperability, conformity, efficiency, and effectiveness. They facilitate trade, spread knowledge, and share technological advances and good management practice. ISO develops only those standards that are required by the market. This work is carried out by experts on loan from the industrial, technical, and business sectors which subsequently put them to use. These experts may be joined by others with relevant knowledge, such as representatives of governmental agencies, testing laboratories, consumer association and academia, and by nongovernmental or other stakeholder organizations that have a specific interest in the issues addressed in the standards. Published under the designation of International Standards, ISO standards represent an international consensus on the state of the art in the technology or good practice concerned.

1.1.2 ISO and the Environment

ISO has a multifaceted approach to meeting the needs of all stakeholders from business, industry, governmental authorities, and nongovernmental organizations, as well as consumers, in the field of the environment.

1. ISO develops standards that help organizations to take a proactive approach to managing environmental issues: the ISO 14000 family of environmental management standards can be implemented in any type of organization in either public or private sectors – from companies to administrations to public utilities.
2. ISO helps to meet the challenge of climate change with standards for greenhouse gas accounting, verification and emissions trading, and for measuring the carbon footprint of products.
3. ISO develops standard documents to facilitate the fusion of business and environmental goals by encouraging the inclusion of environmental aspects in product design.
4. ISO offers a wide‐ranging portfolio of standards for sampling and test methods to deal with specific environmental challenges. It has developed some 570 International Standards for the monitoring of such aspects as the quality of air, water and the soil, as well as noise, radiation, and for controlling the transport of dangerous goods. They also serve in a number of countries as the technical basis for environmental regulations.

1.1.3 Benefits

ISO 14001 was developed primarily to assist companies with a framework for better management control that can result in reducing their environmental impacts. In addition to improvements in performance, organizations can reap a number of economic benefits, including higher conformance with legislative and regulatory requirements (Sheldon 1997) by adopting the ISO standard. By minimizing the risk of regulatory and environmental liability fines and improving an organization's efficiency (Delmas 2009), benefits can include a reduction in waste, consumption of resources, and operating costs. Secondly, as an internationally recognized standard, businesses operating in multiple locations across the globe can leverage their conformance to ISO 14001, eliminating the need for multiple registrations or certifications (Hutchens 2010). Thirdly, there has been a push in the last decade by consumers for companies to adopt better internal controls, making the incorporation of ISO 14001 a smart approach for the long‐term viability of businesses. This can provide them with a competitive advantage against companies that do not adopt the standard (Potoski and Prakash 2005). This in turn can have a positive impact on a company's asset value (Van der Veldt 1997). It can lead to improved public perceptions of the business, placing them in a better position to operate in the international marketplace (Potoski and Prakash 2005; Sheldon 1997). The use of ISO 14001 can demonstrate an innovative and forward‐thinking approach to customers and prospective employees. It can increase a business's access to new customers and business partners. In some markets it can potentially reduce public liability insurance costs. It can serve to reduce trade barriers between registered businesses (Van der Veldt 1997). There is growing interest in including certification to ISO 14001 in tenders for public–private partnerships for infrastructure renewal. Evidence of value in terms of environmental quality and benefit to the taxpayer has been shown in highway projects in Canada.

ISO 14001 addresses not only the environmental aspects of an organization's processes but also those of its products and services. Therefore, ISO/TC 207 has developed additional...