The Environmentalist 17, 11±13 (1997)

The local authority EMAS in the UK: the Sutton

model

BRUCE COCKREAN��

London Borough of Sutton, 24, Denmark Road, Carshalton, Surrey SM5 2JG, UK

Summary

The London Borough of Sutton was the ®rst local authority in the UK to register units under theEMAS scheme. Working on a unit by unit basis the whole of the authority will be registered by theend of 1999. The EMAS was seen as the most appropriate tool for maintaining and expandingexisting environmental initiatives in an increasingly restricted sector. The resulting new systems andwork practices were seen to increase organizational ef®ciency by making sure that the rightenvironmental questions were asked by the right people at the right time. The work has highlighteda number of strengths and weaknesses of the EMAS for local authorities and has highlighted theneed for a more integrated approach in the future for local authorities to meet fully the needs ofsustainability and Local Agenda 21.

Introduction

The London Borough of Sutton recently became the

®rst local authority in the UK to gain EMAS accred-

itation under the adaptation of the Eco-Management

and Audit Regulation for Local Authorities in the

UK. This article examines how this was achieved

and the lessons learnt from the experience.

Sutton is one of 32 London Boroughs. It is si-

tuated in the south west of the city, covering 4300 ha

with a population of 170 000 people. The borough

council is a unitary authority with responsibility for

both local and strategic functions. Employment is

mainly in the service sector, with 4500 ®rms being

based in the borough.

Background

Environmental programmes and environmental man-

agement have long been an important area of work

for local government in the UK and abroad. Histori-

cally, this work has focused on the implementation

and policing of environmental legislation and the

development of community-based environmental in-

itiatives. The extension of the debate in the 1980s

and 1990s to include nature conservation, recycling,

energy conservation and other broader issues has led

to the development of a more systematic environ-

mental management formula to achieve a more

proactive response to the ever-increasing environ-

mental debate. The necessity for the development

of such a comprehensive environmental management

system for local government can be seen from the

experience of the London Borough of Sutton.

An environmental policy adopted by the council

in 1986 created the focus for a wealth of environ-

mental strategies and initiatives within the organiza-

tion and throughout the community. Much was

achieved in the areas of nature conservation, recy-

cling and environmental education, with many

award-winning schemes. The impetus for continued

environmental improvement became increasingly

hard to maintain. A plateau of environmental perfor-

mance had been reached. The emergence of the Eco-

Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) provided

an effective new focus for environmental manage-

ment within the authority. In March 1994, Sutton

decided to seek registration for all its units by the

year 2000 with the ®rst eight units being veri®ed by

the end of 1995.

Implementation

A unit by unit approach was the most applicable to a

local authority the size of Sutton. The ®rst eight

units to gain validation were waste management, en-

vironmental protection, purchasing and departmental

management, architecture, valuation, building ser-

vices, structural engineering and the policy and ad-

ministration function within chief executives.

* Bruce Cockrean has worked for the London Borough of Sutton for 8

years carrying out work as an ecologist, environmental education

of®cer and, since 1994, as an EMAS coordinator. His previous work

included jobs with the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers. Bruce

gained a BSc in agricultural zoology from the University of Newcastle

upon Tyne, a certi®cate in conservation and ecology from the Uni-

versity of London and an MSc in environmental assessment and

management from Oxford Brookes University. He is a member of

the Institute of Biology and an environmental auditor under the EARA

scheme.

0251-1088# 1997 Chapman & Hall 11

Ownership was seen to be the key everyone

needed to understand and be able to relate to those

environmental problems and solutions which af-

fected themselves faced the authority. This could

only be achieved if each unit was given the training

to develop their own systems and the strategic sup-

port to back the systems up wherever necessary. The

ultimate aim would be systems driven by procedures

no longer than one side of paper. The systems were

not developed by consultants or environmental coor-

dinators but by the people who would have to use

them. Project teams of four or ®ve people from with-

in the units were given training and worked with the

EMAS coordinators to develop their own systems.

This resulted in systems that were not unnecessarily

technical or longwinded and which were achievable

and worked. Each team member contributed approxi-

mately 1 h a week over a 3 month period to get their

EMAS system up and running. An ongoing series of

half day, 1 day and 2 day training courses for over 50

people across the organization meant that they got a

good understanding of how to develop their own

EMAS systems.

An environmental steering group made up of

of®cers at the assistant director level and chaired by

the Director of Environmental Services formed the

basis of the corporate overview and the coordination

system. It reported into the council committee struc-

ture. The group had a vital role to play with regard to

the environmental effects of concern to but not in the

control of individual units. This was especially true

of strategic issues and direct effects which needed to

be dealt with on a site by site basis rather than by

individual units. Value was added to existing systems

wherever possible to cut down on bureaucracy. The

®nancial internal audit team were allocated the role

of environmental internal auditors to ensure that sys-

tem control could be maintained without becoming

too burdensome.

The outcomes from the system included (1) the

environmentally sensitive use of materials and re-

sources, (2) a sensitive, environmental assessment

of the projects and plans, (3) an environmental as-

sessment of the budgets, (4) the development of en-

vironmental criteria for contract setting and monitor-

ing and (5) reduction targets for direct effects.

The result of implementing the discipline, target

setting and performance monitoring of the EMAS on

a local authority culture not used to codi®ed systems

was that the right environmental questions were

asked at the right time of the right person. This

meant that existing environmental initiatives were

easier to maintain and so energy could be put into

new initiatives. The environmental plateau in the

Borough has been passed.

Weaknesses

The major weakness of the EMAS within a local

authority is one of image. Without suitable prepara-

tion, the EMAS can be perceived to provide the

worst of both worlds: as a management tool to high-

light existing management weaknesses and as an en-

vironmental tool to add a green gloss and increase

work-load. Whilst these fears are ill-founded, they

are nonetheless very real for many local authority

workers facing an uncertain future in the present

®nancial climate. This perception is not helped by

the guidance produced on the local authority EMAS,

which does not start from a point of acknowledging

existing environmental good practice and control

measures and is often used to highlight only negative

environmental effects without fully identifying the

positive effects.

Since the development of the environmental

policy over 10 years ago, the London Borough of

Sutton had already undertaken a considerable

amount of work on its direct environmental effects

before the advent of the EMAS. This has meant that

additional savings on direct effects have not been so

easily found following the use of the EMAS, though

areas where existing schemes can be extended have

been identi®ed. Probably, more obvious cost savings

would be identi®ed by other authorities without such

an environmental pedigree using the EMAS. The

cost savings from service effects are not so obvious

and need to be seen in the context of organizational

ef®ciency and the right questions being asked by the

right people at the right time. This will result in

maximum environmental gain from the existing in-

itiatives and areas of service delivery and the identi-

®cation of areas where limited resources can be put

to best effect.

Deciding on which effects are signi®cant is pre-

sently a weakness for many local authorities who

have to steer a path between the vagaries of `expert

judgement' and cumbersome risk assessment-type

models. This is particularly true for service effects

when the issues are not so well de®ned.

Costs will always be an issue and the present

cost of veri®cation may well be prohibitive to many

smaller local authorities and may be reason enough

for many less keen local authorities not to develop

the EMAS at all.

Strengths

The great strengths of the EMAS are its focus on a

measurable, controllable improvement and the fact

that it highlights that everyone in an organization

has a contribution to make. This is especially true

for local authorities, where initiatives are often set

up without suitable controls. When a `green initia-

tive' is thought up it may be allowed to drift. With-

out the discipline of the EMAS it can be hard to see

whether an initiative is succeeding and not just tying

up staff time and resources.

The EMAS works as an improvement-led man-

agement system and not just as an environmental

management system. This is a great strength for local

authorities that have no experience of codi®ed sys-

tems or those who have been left with unsatisfactory

Cockrean

12 The Environmentalist

results from traditional quality systems where the

emphasis is on uniformity. A real strength of the

EMAS is that it allows people to feel good about

themselves, as they can see their efforts are having

a measurable positive effect.

The most important lesson for the EMAS coor-

dinator to learn is not to be too prescriptive. With the

right training the project team approach allows peo-

ple to develop management systems that drive real

environmental change and provide real value to their

service delivery.

The future

The EMAS comes at a time of great change for local

authorities and it provides a great tool for meeting

many of the challenges ahead. But it is only a start.

The brave new world for local authorities, where

local authorities need to address the issues of sus-

tainability, Local Agenda 21, business planning and

investing in people, calls for an even more integrated

approach if the pitfall of seeing these initiatives in

isolation and not as part of a single management

approach is to be avoided. The EMAS approach will

surely develop into a sustainability management sys-

tem, which will help to put local authorities at the

front of the sustainability and Local Agenda 21 de-

bate, where they belong.

Local authority EMAS in the UK

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