| Summary: | Environmental management has increasingly become a critical approach for dealing
with environmental issues. Implicit in this, is the premise that for environmental
management to be effective, a systematic approach is imperative. For this reason,
environmental management systems have emerged as the strategy for organizations
within which environmental management initiatives are co-ordinated. While
environmental management systems (EMS) are a necessary and important tool to
achieve quality environmental performance and protection, experience with them
illustrates how their adoption and implementation are constrained by a number of
factors. EMS cannot operate in isolation. Rather, they need to be incorporated into an
organization's overall management strategy.
Using the Msunduzi Council as a case study, this study looks at the challenges and
complexities that local governments, tasked with the protection of the environment at
local level, encounter. The New England Road Landfill Site has been highlighted as a
section of the Msunduzi Council where an Environmental Management System is
entrenched.
Research methods used to obtain data comprised a workshop and key informant
interviews. Issues that emerged from the workshop informed and directed the analysis
of the data.
As research undertaken and conclusions drawn suggest, the adoption and
implementation of an Environmental Management Framework or System ensures that
environmental matters are tackled in a systematic and proactive manner within an
organization. This in turn promotes quality environmental management and
subsequently sustainable development. === Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.
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