Kirklees Metropolitan Council A case study ofachieving EMAS

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Kirklees Metropolitan Council

A case study of achieving EMAS

BEFORE AFTERWaste Management is an issue for all depots. EMAS has helped put in place a controlled wastemanagement system which has increased waste recycling, reduced risk of pollution, improvedhouse-keeping, health & safety and the general appearance of the sites.

In early 2004 Kirklees Metropolitan Council(KMC) successfully achieved full CouncilCertification to the Eco-management andAudit Scheme (EMAS). The implementationprocess was over a three year period withnine departments gaining certification in yearone, 18 in year two and in the final year all 25departments succeeded.

The journey to full Council verification hasbeen far from easy; however theenvironmental and cost benefits far exceedthe implementation costs.

CostsAnnual council budget of £154,000:

• 3 Environment Management System(EMS) Officer posts (£100,000);

• Internal Auditing (£20,000);• Training & Publications (£10,000);• External verification (£24,000).

Human resources: • Three EMAS officers providing assistance

to 25 central departments;• High impact (significant) departments: 15

days assistance per year;• Complex impact departments: 10 days

per year;• Low impact departments 5 days per year;• 25 departmental EMAS Lead Officers,

(approx. 4 days per month);• Internal audits – internal audit department

(45 days per year).

There are also additional capital costs forhigh impact departments to implement depotimprovements. For example, in order tocomply with the Control of Pollution (OilStorage) Regulations 2001, EnvironmentalServices spent £38,000 on replacing fueldispensing installations, waste oil storageimprovements, and the installation ofspillage kits.

Building Services Depot: Before and after EMAS implementation

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After the success of the whole Councilachieving EMAS accreditation it was essentialto reflect on what KMC has learnt over thethree year implementation period. A SWOTanalysis (STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES,OPPORTUNITIES and THREATS) wastherefore undertaken. Results of the analysisare as follows.

STRENGTHSGroup Involvement – EMAS has improvedcommunication between council departments.Initially there was one EMAS Lead Officer ineach department implementing EMAS, but thisbrought about many difficulties as theseofficers often worked separately to the overallmanagement.

When KMC was verified in November 2002 itwas identified that human resources should beincreased, especially in the more significanthigh impact departments. Now departmentswith significant impacts have a team approachto EMAS which enables all significant aspectsand improvements to be captured within anenvironmental management system as part ofthe overall management approach of theservice.

Departments now also share EMAS bestpractice and have a greater awareness ofdepartment activities.

EMAS is now seen as a corporate priority –EMAS has strong support from the Council’sExecutive Management Group, and as a resultsenior management see EMAS as a councilpriority and have been able to access supportsuch as additional funds for environmentalimprovements.

Cost Benefit – EMAS can help save moneyas well as benefiting the environment,especially in reducing waste production,energy waste and fuel consumption.

Buildings energy use (2000 – 2002) • 47% reduction in emissions of CO2

– £ 714,000 savingFleet transport (2000 – 2002)• 4% reduction in emissions of CO2

– £ 295,000 savingEmployee mileage (2001/2 – 2002/3)• 7% reduction in emissions of CO2

– £ 284,000 saving

Waste (2000 – 2002)• 12% reduction in tonnes produced– £ 29,000 saving

Legal Compliance - EMAS has helped theCouncil identify and comply with all applicableenvironmental legislation.

Before the introduction of EMAS the Councilhad made no corporate provision to ensurecompliance with environmental legislation.This was generally dealt with by officers fromwork areas where environmental legislationapplied.

To overcome this, KMC completed a review ofeach department in order to identify applicablelegislation and compiled this into a registerwhich is reviewed annually.

EMAS has helped us identify an unexpectednumber of non-compliances in legislationregarding waste and water management. Weconsulted the Environment Agency andYorkshire Water on how to become compliantwith these issues and through our opennessand commitment, we developed a strongworking relationship with both regulatorybodies. They supported us by delivering legaltraining to all of our departmental EMAS LeadOfficers, carrying out numerous siteinspections and providing documentedguidance.

EMAS is rewarding to services – Byadopting a department-by-departmentapproach, services are rewarded by eachreceiving their own EMAS certificate at a highprofile awards ceremony. A prestigiousceremony was held at Huddersfield Town Hallin May 2004 to award services on their EMASachievements. Martin Baxter, the Managing

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Director of the Institute of EnvironmentalManagement and Assessment (IEMA),presented the EMAS certificates of registration.

Additional awards were also presented by JanetRussell, Director of Environment andTransportation for:

• the service with the most environmentalimprovements;

• the service with the best environmentalimprovement;

• the most committed EMAS Lead Officer;

• the most committed EMAS CascadeOfficer (ECO).

ECO co-ordination – KMC has a network of250 ECOs. This is a network of volunteers whopromote environmental issues within theirworkplace. They do this primarily throughenvironmental theme months. There are sixtheme months which run throughout the year,each of which concentrates on a significantissue for the Council: Energy, Waste, Water,Transport, Purchasing and Bio-diversity. This is

a valuable, inexpensive mechanism for raisingenvironmental awareness to the Council’s17,500 employees.

EMAS has brought about environmentalcultural change – Change can be a verygradual process and it is important toremember it is difficult to convert everybody!Since going for EMAS, there has graduallybeen a greater commitment and enthusiasmtowards the protection of the environment fromcouncil employees. This has beendemonstrated through the increased number ofcouncil staff volunteering to be ECOs.

Integration with other Systems -“KMC’s EMAS system is a complex welldeveloped integrated system” – quote fromDavid Robinson, BSI EMAS Verifier inNovember 2003 verification.

At the beginning, EMAS was seen as a stand-alone system. However, over time links weremade to integrate EMAS with other councilsystems. KMC has now set up a corporategroup consisting of senior and middlemanagement to look at integrating all corporate

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Confident staff being verified

regimes such as Investors in People (IIP),Performance Management, Health and Safety,Information Management and Equalities. Theaim is to reduce repetition and workloads whilstensuring the continued development of all theregimes.

Promotion of environmental projects - In theCouncil’s annual Environment Statement,EMAS has helped to highlight manyenvironmental projects being undertaken byother departments. The EnvironmentStatement is an excellent opportunity for councildepartments to promote the good work which isbeing achieved.

Staff TrainingDifficulties were encountered when trying toreach all front line staff. In the first phase ofverification, a corporate non-conformance wasraised due to poor operational control at depots.This required us to develop user-friendlyprocedures for frontline staff and providetraining on why they needed to be followed.

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WEAKNESSESBureaucracy– As with many managementsystems, EMAS can be perceived asbureaucratic, especially for low environmentalimpact departments. Although major changeshave been made to the EMAS system over thepast year it can sometimes be seen as anendless paperwork exercise.

To alleviate this problem KMC are developing asimplified system which removes unnecessarylayers of work for low impact services. Forexample external verification and internal auditschedules have been reviewed to ensure thatlow impact services are only verified andaudited once in a three year period. Also, thepaper based system is being replaced with anelectronic database.

Responsibility - EMAS is a large project tomanage. Initially it was viewed to be theresponsibility of the Environment Unit toimplement and maintain the system. Over theyears, departments have realised that it is theirmanagement system and responsibility to setand achieve their own objectives and targetsand that the Environment Unit is there only in anadvisory and co-ordinating role.

Today, departments have full ownership of theirsystems, with EMAS representatives to ensurethat it is maintained and that continualimprovement is being achieved.

Audits - KMC developed an environmentalaudit system to exceed the requirements ofEMAS. The system was based on theprinciples expressed in the Internal StandardsOrganisation (ISO) series of environmentalauditing guidelines, ISO 14010, 14011, and14012. Having such a thorough audit systemenables the verifiers to spend less time on theEMAS documentation and more timeconcentrating on the environmentalimprovements being made.

It is essential that internal audits coveroperational control, ensuring appropriateprocedures are in place and that they are beingfollowed. This is important with front line staff asthey can have the greatest potential for causingenvironmental damage. These staff must bemade aware of the importance of followingEMAS procedures.

The introduction of a robust internal auditingscheme also benefited KMC in its climateprotection work by putting it in a position toenter into the UK Emissions Trading Schemeand sign up to legally binding emissionreductions up to 2006.

It was recognised in the November verification2003 that although KMC has an intense auditschedule, there is still room for improvement.This is why KMC are now working with LeedsCity Council to share audit experience. InDecember 2003 the EMAS Officer from LeedsCity Council undertook an audit on KMC’sHighways Department and KMC audited theLeeds Building Agency. This was an extremelyuseful process as the Leeds verifiers raisedmany issues that our’s hadn’t and vice-versa.We are now committed to exchanging regularinternal audits with Leeds City Council.

Legal Compliance Demonstration -Demonstrating legal compliance is not an easytask. Initially KMC concentrated on getting allappropriate legal documentation in place forverification. It was identified that we need to goone step further and demonstrate compliancewith consents, exemptions, permits andplanning permission. In the future, alldepartments with legal documentation will beproducing a legal matrix which will log legaldocumentation, the conditions, responsibilitiesand where it is retained.

Impacts Scoring - The first stage of developingan environmental management system is toidentify all of the environmental impacts of theorganisation. The second stage is to determinewhich of the impacts are significant. In KMC weuse a rather complex scoring system whichoperates well when scoring negative impacts,but is difficult to use when looking at positiveimpacts. KMC are now developing an easy touse scoring system which take positive impactsinto consideration and that is more user friendly.

Document Control – EMAS documentationneeds to be controlled in that it needs to bedated, and have an issue number. Documentcontrol is a requirement in ISO 14001. Somedepartments have found it hard to set up asystem to control this. This is a serious problemwhen being verified as you need to be able todemonstrate environmental improvements for aspecific time period.

We are designing an EMAS database toreplace our current paper based system. Thisshould eliminate document control problemsand save paper as well.

OPPORTUNITIESExternal Funding – KMC was invited to join aEuropean Funded project with Global to Localto assist in implementing EMAS in LocalAuthorities in Poland, Hungary and Greece.This is a three year project where KMC will beproviding practical implementation advicebased on our six year EMAS experience.

Sharing information with other LocalAuthorities - KMC wants to share experienceswith other local authorities working towardsEMAS. With joint support from Leeds andBradford City Council a Yorkshire EMAS Grouphas been set up to achieve the followingobjectives:

• Encourage and develop cross authorityworking partnerships;

• Share best practice;• Share EMAS experiences;• Legislation scanning;• Training Development;• Access external funding streams.

Statement - Many private organisations wouldbe uncomfortable making a publicenvironmental statement of performance asrequired by the EMAS standard. However,independant verification of environmentalperformance adds credibility by demonstratingthat one is operating to a high standard and itreinforces commitment to public accountability.

Verifying an environmental statement can be alengthy process, especially when it includes alarge number of departments. This can bemade less time consuming if services areprepared in advance. We now ask all of ourservices to compile an “evidence pack” tosupport each statement of their performancebefore verification.

Supply chain & contractor involvement - KMC wants to expand business opportunitiesby providing an advisory service to oursuppliers and contractors. KMC will alsopromote funding opportunities that areavailable such as Business Link, GreenBusiness Network, Council Grants, SimplySolar etc.

THREATSEMAS could be seen as a waste of money -KMC has a corporate budget of £154,000 ayear to maintain EMAS. There are also somehidden costs such as physical depotimprovements, ensuring legal compliance,training, manager and officers time etc. Thiscan create competition with other corporatepriorities, so it is important to continuouslypromote the cost savings and environmentalbenefits that are being made through havingEMAS accreditation.

EMAS may not be a priority - There are a lotof council initiatives fighting to be a priority;performance management, quality systems,information management, best value, healthand safety, IIP etc. Managers can feel they arebeing overburdened and find it difficult toprioritise. KMC recognises this is an issue andhas set up a corporate group to discuss linkingthe main corporate initiatives, with the objectiveof reducing repetition and workloads.

Lack of maintenance once accreditation isachieved - There is a threat that the staffmotivation will lessen now that EMASaccreditation has been achieved. MaintainingEMAS accreditation can be more difficult thanachieving it, which is why it is important for theCouncil’s EMAS Team to continuously promotethe benefits and encourage commitment tocontinuous improvement.

Local community - Perceptions of EMAS inthe local community may lead to objection oftax payer’s money being spent on EMAS asthey may not understand or recognise thepotential or actual benefit to their local area. Itmust be stressed that there are local benefitssuch as improved visual impact of counciloperations, improved quality of waterways,reduced waste generation, improved landmanagement and increased biodiversity.

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For further details contact:Adele Wiseman, Environment Officer (EMAS)Helena Tinker, Environment Officer (EMAS)Environment UnitKirklees Metropolitan Council23 Estate BuildingsRailway StreetHuddersfieldHD1 1JY

Telephone: 01484 223568Fax: 01484 223576E-mail: environment.unit@kirklees.gov.uk

Produced by Kirklees Environment Unit - October 2004Printed on Recycled Paper

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