Best Environmental Management Practices Research Articles

Environmental improvement of product supply chains: Proposed best practice techniques, quantitative indicators and benchmarks of excellence for retailers

Retailers are strategically positioned to leverage environmental improvement over product supply chains through actions targeted at suppliers and consumers. Informed by scientific evidence on environmental hotspots and control points across 14 priority product groups, and a review of 25 major European retailers' actions, this paper proposes a framework to guide and assess retailer best practice in supply chain environmental improvement. Commonly used product standards and improvement measures are classified into “basic” or “good” levels of environmental protection. A hierarchy of eight Best Environmental Management Practices (BEMPs) is proposed to systematically identify and improve the most environmentally damaging supply chains across retail assortments. Widespread third party environmental certification is the most transparent and verifiable mechanism of improvement but may not be appropriate for some supply chains. The enforcement of retailer-defined environmental requirements, and supplier improvement programmes based on performance benchmarking and dissemination of better management practices, are alternative BEMPs that may be used in combination with third party certification. Facilitating consumer selection of frontrunner ecological products is a lower priority BEMP owing to the well documented limitations of this approach. From available data, the highest current or credible-target sales shares of products improved according to the highest priority BEMP and environmental protection level were used to derive “benchmarks of excellence” for each of the 14 product groups. The assessment framework is demonstrated through application to three retailers.

Hydrologic, water quality and geomorphic indicators of catchment Effective Imperviousness

Recent research has related waterway ecosystem health to a simple composite indicator of catchment Effective Imperviousness (EI). EI is defined as the impervious area that is directly connected, via a stormwater pipe or channel, to receiving waters. Empirical evidence has shown that catchments with EI greater than 5% have a significant impact on stream health. There are many hydrological and water quality indicators that could be used to define the EI of a catchment. Three primary indicators are proposed. Templates relating each of these indicators to catchment imperviousness were derived to enable (i) stormwater management strategies to be assessed in terms of catchment EI; and (ii) to examine the performance of current Victorian Best Practice Environmental Management (BPEM) objectives for stormwater. Meeting the current Victorian BPEM objectives has the effect of transforming the pollutant characteristics of a catchment of 60% imperviousness to an equivalent catchment with an EI of 10% or less. Rainwater tanks transform the hydrologic characteristics of a catchment to a lower equivalent EI, reducing a catchment with an EI of 60% to between 40% and 50%. Further reduction in catchment EI may be achieved by a combination of larger tank volume, higher stormwater use as a source and stormwater infiltration. Analyses also suggest that Victorian BPEM objectives for 1.5-year ARI peak flow reduction can significantly reduce the post-development Erosion Potential Index (EPI) of natural urban waterways by as much as 90%. This paper demonstrates that meeting the current Victorian BPEM objectives could contribute substantially to achieving low catchment EI.

Improving environmental performance through innovation: Recent trends in the mining industry

Innovation in mineral processing technology can enable mining companies to combine gains in productivity with improvements in environmental management. Although the mining industry has a reputation for technological conservatism, this paper argues that the development, acquisition and assimilation of new technologies may be an increasingly important determinant of a company's competitive position in the context of growing market and regulatory pressures. Specific examples of innovativeprocess and remediation technologies are reviewed, and their ability to improve competitiveness and sustain best-practice environmental management is linked to the capacity of the company to manage technological and organisational change.