Environmental Management: Waste Issue Presentation - QUT

This presentation, prepared for a Managing Sustainable Change course at QUT, addresses the environmental impact of waste, specifically black and grey water, generated by the cruise industry, with Holland American Line (HAL) as a case study. It identifies the ocean as the cruise industry's most vital resource and examines the ethical dilemmas associated with waste discharge, including the presence of pathogens and the potential for food contamination. The presentation analyzes the perspectives of various stakeholders, including internal stakeholders like employees and managers, and external stakeholders such as suppliers, customers, and government entities, evaluating the impact of waste management practices on each group. It proposes stakeholder management strategies, drawing on models by Mitroff and others, to mitigate risks, improve environmental performance, and foster sustainable practices within the cruise industry, recommending actions for better communication and ethical engagement to address the sustainability issue. The presentation aims to provide well-researched advice for the company board of directors on how they should identify and manage their stakeholders with respect to a specific sustainability issue.

Environmental Management for Sustainable
Development
Waste issue in relation to black and grey
matter that spills into the ocean

Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to identify a
stakeholder issue in an organization and the
challenges of ethical dilemma that face that
particular organizationvan (Vliet, Flörke, &
Wada, 2017).

Who is a stakeholder
A stakeholder is any person or a group that
are affected by the activities of an
organization and whose support leads to
existence of the company (Jones, Wicks &
Freeman, 2017). Stakeholders in any
organization take two forms Internal and
external stakeholders.

Internal stakeholders
Internal stakeholders are those who operate
within the organization and are employees,
managers, and owners of the business.

External stakeholders
The external are those who operative outside
the organization and includes suppliers,
society, government, creditors, shareholders,
and customers.

Why take care of stakeholders
The company needs to take care of stakeholders
because they affect the decision making process of
the company. Some stakeholders have direct
management roles in the business of the company
and are investors who increases or decreases their
stake in your company as a result of your financial
performance (Dixon-Fowler, Ellstrand, & Johnson,
2017). They carry the company conscience and
can vote for or against your company if in regards
to their perception on your company activities on
human rights or environmental laws.

The sustainability issue and ethical dilemma
In this paper we identify Waste issue in relation
to black and grey matter that spills into the
ocean as the sustainability issue in discussion
within Holland American Line (HAL). Cruise
industry represent a small portion of activities
taking place in the international maritime
(Klein, 2011). Even so the industry greatly
affect the environment through generation of
more waste into the maritime environment by
their passengers, crews and staff (Klein, 2011).

Identification importance of
ocean
The most important and most reliable
resource in cruise industry business is the
ocean. Oceans cover 71% surface of the earth
and are sources of food like fish and shellfish
(De Grosbois, 2016). Oceans provides with
sailing surfaces, diving, surfing,
transportation, swimming and other
recreation activities.

…continuation…
Oceans are the sources of biomedical
organisms that are used to heal diseases and
most important regulation of climate. Even as
oceans and atmosphere define weather
conditions by working together they still face
big threats. Among them is black and grey
water.

Black and grey waters
Black water is the human waste deposited in
oceans through the discharge of recreational
boats and shipping industry (De Grosbois,
2016). Grey water originates from galley
sinks and showers from varying distances
from coastlines.

Holland American Line Ethical dilemma on
black and grey waters
Black water contains pathogens like fecal coliform bacteria.
This bacteria requires to be treated before it is allowed into
the environment (Klein, 2011). Without treatment it can
cause serious food contamination including shellfish and
fish which results to general food chain contamination (De
Grosbois, 2016). This is a big risk to human health as it can
be transmit infectious diseases (Klein, 2011). A recent
report by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finds that
in one week voyage, a ship with 3000 passengers and
crewmembers capacity releases 210, 000 or (794,850 L) of
sewage water and over 1 million gallons of grey water (De
Grosbois, 2016). This industry is estimated to cause 77% of
pollution in the marine lives across the globe.

Ethical issues
Safety
Over 6000 people use cruise ship industry a day. these people needs to be safe,
prepared and informed of any danger. Instead, the captain Francesco Schettino have
been reported to be detained for questioning on manslaughter by the Italian police
(Klein, 2011). The captain had failed to offer assistance and abandoned the ship. For
instance in a case with 4,200 passengers on board 17 people were reported missing, 70
severely injured and 32 killed in the case.
Pollution
Members of staff and passengers has to be better informed. The more informed they are
the more smooth the operations would be. Actions needs to be taken to avoid unethical
practices (Bonilla-Priego, Font & del Rosario Pacheco-Olivares, 2014). Better
communication and easy steps can really help.
Tourism
The social effect of sustainability are not similar across sectors. They vary with issues
such as consumer rights, health and safety, fair dealings with consumers and suppliers,
participation in local democracy, culture and heritage, equal opportunities, and
infrastructure and access to services. It is hard to assign or measure a value of
potential impacts on this list (Bonilla-Priego, Font & del Rosario Pacheco-Olivares,
2014).