Environmental Management System (EMS) within Construction Site: A case study in Kelantan State, Malaysia

Abstract

An Environmental Management System (EMS) was introduced to meet the environmental needs and an organization should have an understanding of what those environmental needs are. In a construction industry, the awareness about the environment performance is improving and the need to protect the environment quality is growing good in order to maintain the sustainability of the development in a country.Spirit of sustainable development embodied and endorsed in the medium- and long-term development strategies such as Third Malaysian Plan (1976-1980) and thereafter, e.g. Seventh Malaysian Plan (1996-2000). Thus, the construction players that involved in the construction projects have to take the responsibility to accept all the regulation related to the environment protection during construction processes. This study concluded that the awareness of EMS among the construction players in Kelantan State is very low. Most of the construction players understand an EMS. However, although they understood what EMS is, yet they did not implement and apply the system within the construction sites. They understand an EMS and its obligation, but some of them, indicated that it is not important to be implemented, as they are doing projects just to get the profit. Although, the construction players understand an EMS, but they do not have any skills and experiences in implementing EMS within construction site.