Strategies and barriers to implement an environmental management system : Small size companies in the metal industry

There has been an increased awareness of the current problems regarding the environmental changes in the world. Companies are acknowledging these problems more and more to try and prevent the heavy pollution humans contribute. The metal industry is one of the highest emitters in the world because its manufacturing, production, and processing require substantial amounts of energy. While the pressure of addressing environmental issues has been on the bigger companies in history, the smaller ones are being caught up in the same pressure from customers and partners. Because of the raised awareness of the environmental impact, even the smaller companies, which are low on environmental impact alone but substantial when defined as a whole market, are more often required to implement an environmental management system. However, the limitations of resources are different for smaller companies. There is no structured way to work towards a certification in ISO 14001 with the barriers that might limit them. This study has its focus on gathering information in a qualitative mean to interpret and generalize the reality of smaller companies in the metal industry. By doing so, the main goal is to investigate the barriers that appear for the management when implementing an EMS according to ISO 14001 and identify the potential procedures taken to reach the end goal of certification. The results of this study are that companies don’t face the barrier of economic resources and the true barrier is the interpretation of costs. The implementation of a certified EMS is a long-term investment and generates money through continuous improvements and creates a business opportunity by opening a new market to customers with ISO 14001 requirements. Knowledge was a barrier and the change in ISO 14001 being more compatible with previous quality certification ISO 9001 helped the implementation