Development of an EMS planning framework for environmental management practices

The increasing consciousness of sustainable development and reconciling production with ecosystem conservation have fostered the adoption and implementation of environmental management systems (EMS). This paper investigates the critical processes and factors that may affect EMS planning. Empirical findings of a recent study in Hong Kong are presented, and a five-stage EMS planning framework starting from strategy formulation to system implementation and evaluation is proposed. The framework integrates various perspectives of environmental management and strategy formulation. The paper provides organisations with a procedural guide for implementing environmental management practices. Flexible adaptation of the framework can help organisations derive potential benefits from the EMS implementation leading to sustainable competitive advantage. The framework can be modified to cater for varied business nature and operations in industry.