Environmental Management System: Implementation, Voluntary Adoption, and Limitations in Australian Agriculture Sector

This essay discusses the implementation, voluntary adoption, and limitations of Environmental Management System (EMS) in the Australian agriculture sector. It explains what EMS is, its key objectives, the role of ISO 14001:2015 and 14040:2006 in EMS, issues and solutions regarding EMS, EMS adoption, and overcoming limitations in the adoption of EMS in agriculture. The essay concludes that EMS is a tool that governs and guides the farmers and their activities along with other industries in consideration of their impact on the environment.

Running Head: Environmental Management System
Environmental Management System
Essay
System04104
9/11/2018

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Environmental Management Systems: Implementation, Voluntary
Adoption, and its limitations in Australian Agriculture Sector
The agriculture industry represents a vital and diverse sector in the Australian economy and
plays a major role in the production and processing of food, fibre, and ornamental products.
Environmental management plays a vital role in agriculture and producing high-quality
products in both the international and domestic market. Thus, it is through public pressure
and marketing interest that everybody understands and aware of the need for agriculture and
its impact on the environment in a sustainable way.
EMS is a system-based approach that can be used by farmers as well as many business
organisations to improve its efficiency and effectiveness in the business operation or
production of goods with maintaining improved environmental results. The adoption of a
formal EMS system in agriculture sector is essential thus, it is necessary to implement it
properly in the agriculture sector. The Ministry of Agriculture in Austrian and Natural
Resource then developed a National Framework for EMS, which supports in the
implementation of EMS in Australian agriculture (Nguyen, et.al, 2014).
1. What is EMS?
EMS is an organised and a systematic regulatory body that helps agriculture system, farmers,
or any enterprises or business organisations to identify and manage its impact on the
environment. The EMS is an unified management tool that provides the opportunity to
improve industrial (especially Agricultural, beef, food processing) recital by supporting and
constructing current activities such as best management practices, production certification,
and quality assurance, property management planning schemes. It works on a management
outline that is based on ‘plan, do, check, and act’ cycle that helps in constant improvement in
various sectors of agriculture (Lewandowska, 2011).
2. Key objective of EMS
The main objective of EMS is to proper management of natural resources, which is essential
for the encounter of long-term environmental issues. The Australian government is very
much capable of managing and protecting their natural resources and the environment.
However, the major concern is that the involvement of other sectors such as agriculture,

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industry, landholders, meat (beef), and other wider community is also important to achieve
these aims (Leung and Yang, 2012). The main objectives of EMS are as follows:
1. Analyse the impact of various industrial operation for environmental review.
2. Develop an environmental management program
3. Operational and documental control over various industries
4. Monitoring and measurement
5. Develop an environmental policy
6. Prevent pollution
3. Role of ISO 14001:2015 and 14040:2006 in EMS
The Australian EMS is certified by ISO 14001:2015 and 14040:2006. ISO 14001:2015 is a
core function of EMS that increased the importance of environmental management by
providing adequate guiding in the strategic planning process. It focuses on stronger
commitment to practical initiatives that enhance environmental performance with the main
focus on life cycle thinking. It also integrates the environmental issues with the site’s
business model. This measures the life cycle impacts of products and services. ISO
14040:2006 describe the values and outline of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) including
definitions, Life cycle inventory analysis, goals and scope of LCA, impact assessment of life
cycle, and other fundamental information about LCA (ISO, 2006). LCA is a system
comprising a portfolio of proper inputs and outputs of a product system and measuring the
possible impacts of these outputs and input on the environment, and reducing the results of
the inventory and its impact. Although the LCA is reflected to be a good tool used for
measuring the environmental effects and its impact in coordination with the EMS. The
limitations of EMS do not prohibit its appropriateness to be used. After certain
interpretations, LCA as an appreciated alternative to the environmental practices we are
currently using in Australia.
4. Issues and Solutions regarding EMS
The major problem behind Australian EMS program is its implementation and adoption by
the farmers and landholders. It is assumed that it is only suitable for the large business
organisation and not cares about the small people. To make it successful it is necessary that it
should be adopted by the various farmers and landholders in Austrian who are the key
stakeholders of this program. The Australian government continuously focuses on Voluntary
adoption of this environmental program thus the adverse effect of the organisational

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operation can easily be eliminated from the community. Another problem is that it is a
process based system and does not ensure the success of this environmental program and
about its favourable outcome. The large landholders who focus on the innovative way of
farming and adopting new techniques in agriculture for the excessive production of grains ay
somehow use excessive chemicals that harm the environment and even the human health (de
Oliveira, et. al, 2017).
The farmers and landholders play a major role in the environmental management system and
the effectiveness of the EMS depends on their efforts through the proper management of soil
and water during farming. The Australian government-run several other programs in favour
of farmers that support EMS to run effectively and prevent too much destruction of natural
resources. The Australian government still finding ways to involve all the farmers and small
landholders to contribute with their efforts in the environmental management system. The
ISO 14001 provides all the essential guidelines to the EMS to run this program successfully
in the rural area of the country to support both the agriculture sector and dairy and beef
producers. However, Australian government trying to a proper implementation of the EMS
plan in the agriculture sector by voluntary adoption approach that is still to be successful
because the dissatisfaction of large-scale farmers and businessman still think that it is not
beneficial for them. The Australian government and catchment management both re
governing bodies and they using Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) as the basis to try
to attain environmental goals set out in catchment plans. The Australian government is
continuously focusing on discovering its potential to be applied at a catchment scale, among
other things, for the major purpose of linking farm-level actions to catchment targets. To
solve above problems Australian government should focus on to ensure the participation of
both farmers and the organisational sector as well because only joint effort and voluntary
adoption of these two sectors can ensure the proper outcome of EMS (Daddi, et. al, 2016).
5. EMS Adoption
Adoption of EMS is the main issue in Australia and if it successfully adopts by the
agriculture sector it improves the productivity in agriculture as well as improve financial
conditions of farmers. The successful adoption of EMS needs recognition of social,
economic, and ecological issues. Moreover, it should be addressed in order to contribute the
ecologically sustainable development of the country (Collins, et.al, 2016). The agriculture
industry in Australia operates under the range of statutory requirements from all tiers of

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government with the main purpose of ensuring product quality and safety and regulates
marketing and branding schemes. The key objective behind the adoption of EMS is to proper
management of natural resources and environmental improvements such as conservation of
natural resources such as soil, water, and vegetation. It also supports farmers to produce
grains in better quality and in large quantity. The voluntary adoption of EMS also focuses on
the social issues and protects cultural heritage, community values, and occupational health
and safety of farmers from poisonous chemicals and fertilizers. Adoption of EMS gives an
opportunity to Australia to exploit on the ‘clean and green’ image and fulfil all the
requirements and necessities of national resource management policy.
6. Overcoming limitations in the adoption of EMS in Agriculture
The most of the farmers in Australia are unaware of the EMS program. Therefore, it is
necessary for the Australian government to spread awareness about EMS in the farmers and
landholders. The Australian agriculture sectors, which include grains, livestock, dairy, cotton,
meat production, wine, rice, and sugar etc. still are investigating the impact of EMS on their
business and agricultural operations (Cary and Roberts, 2011). Apart from the agriculture
sector, EMS also supports the fisheries and forestry industry in coordination with Regional
Forest Agreements. The Australian government should also focus to make it compulsory to
adopt EMS program for every farmer and industrial people and set their liability towards the
environment in which they live and operate their business.
7. Conclusion
The EMS system in the agriculture sector in Australia is a tool that governs and guides the
farmers and their activities along with other industries in consideration of their impact on the
environment. The EMS program helps in the management of natural resources and
preventing the destruction of biological resources, which are essential for the human lives and
also helpful in maintaining our environmental stability. The National Framework also
supports the EMS in the farming sector in identifying the roles of farmers, landholders, and
other parties by enabling them systematically manage their natural resources. EMS helps the
farmers and landholders about to adopt and implement EMS according to their need in a way
that helps in the expansion of farming business and a sustainable rural future. The EMS
system will be a better tool if it works along with other Australian environmental programs
and properly adopted by all the industries including agriculture sector.

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