Why Environmental Management Is The Need Of The Hour

Environment conservation has become a very common topic of discussion all over the world. The rapid growth of population and unplanned urbanization is leading to several environmental crises in India. Economic development without ecological contemplations causes the environmental crisis. As a result, it gradually diminishes the quality of life of the present generation as well as the future generation. 

There was a time when industries were only concerned about their outputs and revenues. But now, there has been an outcry about the hazardous impact of business activities on nature and how the resources are being exploited. The corporate sectors in the global market are now concentrating more on eco-friendly outputs as they are becoming more concerned about environmental degradation. 

Importance of Environmental Management:

Environmental management is nothing but a tool to recover the quality of nature. It is an organized approach to supervise the environmental affairs of an organization.  The main aim of this management process is to minimizing waste.  An effective environmental management process reduces carbon emissions, prevents pollution, and helps in processing all the waste and wise usage of energy and resources.

We are utilizing and wasting natural resources too much. If we continue to do so, one day everything will be destroyed. That’s why environmental management has become very important to protect us from the crisis. The management regulates the proper utilization of resources so that it minimizes waste generation. 

The current situation of economic development makes it important to widen the management’s perspective of environment conservation. The rapid industrialization for the development of an economy is leading to excessive pollution and other adverse effects. Hence, it has become vital to carefully consider the ecological consequences while setting up an industrial unit.

Environmental management also encourages employees to undergo training to attain desired objectives. This promotes responsibility and accountability in a firm as well as helps to regulate the impact and objective of a product or a service. Sustainable development is conceivable with the help of environmental management as it helps include the ecological ability of the enterprise.

The environmental management system supports green reporting that fight against all negative public opinions in the global economy as there is an existence of a strong environmental lobby against environmentally unfriendly industries that are found. So impressive decisions should be taken through the application of environmental management to eliminate many environmental problems.

Environmental resource management echoes unsound production and consumption patterns, misuse, or scanty utilization of resources and assets like water. Optimal distribution of these scanty resources in the economy is possible only with the help of environmental management system. The usage of renewable sources of energy like solar energy, wind energy, etc. must be advocated.

Environmental resource management includes all biophysical environmental constituents: both living and non-living. This is because of the interrelated network between all living species and their environments. This environment also includes the associations of the human environment, for instance, the economic, cultural, and social environment with the biophysical environment. The social, economic, ethical, and technological aspects of environmental resource management are very essential.

Completing environmental management tasks becomes necessary because there is a burden of proof on businesses through their permits needs regular recordkeeping and reporting. Corporate sectors need to maintain an environmental balance sheet or “Green Report” that contains data on their chemical inventories, chemical usages, waste generation, air emissions, and water discharges to provide compliance reports to central or state regulators. This data is also needed in case an auditor visits to inspect the facilities.

To conclude, environmental management has become essential for every business to implement a sound environmental management system to combat environmental degradation. Environmental management for business entities is all about finding the right balance – what goes in must come out.

Dr Adya Sharma

Guest Author The author is Director, SCMS Pune