Shangri-La’s Environmental Management System

Case write-up on Island Shangri-La’s Environmental Management System

POL3242 Business and the Environment

Chu Wing Yan
53568506

1. In what way was Island Shangri-La prepared, or fall short of the ISO 14001 requirements before its application for certification?

After undergoing the pilot programme to understand the structure of ISO 14001, Island Shangri-La proceeded to try to obtain the certification. After a brunch of analysis by the HKPC as a consultant, it revealed that the operational practices in different departments of Island Shangri-La were pretty-prepared for the certification, as well as the . The required amendment to meet the standard was minor.

However, for the corporate structure and the personal development of Island Shangri-La fall short of the ISO requirements. It did not have a particular structure which to excel the environmental management.

1. What are the changes and challenges in establishing an EMS in Island Shangri-La?

To establish EMS in Island Shangri-La, it faced a few challenges.

Changes made

Island Shangri-La make changes in organizational structure, operational practice on different departments as well as personal development. As for the organizational structure, there was no EMS managers before they decided to establish EMS in the business. It then turns out that there are two managers from the training department and the mechanical department in which one of them is designated to oversee the implementation of EMS and make sure it runs appropriately on a continuous basis while the other one takes care of engineering and technological aspects. Two of them will be in charge of the EMS issue in the company. They have to audit the operation and activity of all departments and to make sure they comply with the ISO 14001 requirements. In addition, the general manager will be responsible for the overall EMS authorization while the senior management and department heads will help guide the operation and activity in attaining the requirement while the senior executives provides human, technological and financial resources.

As for the personal development, Hotel Island Shangri-La offers its newly-come staff an orientation programme which gives rationale behind EMS and the importance of implementation. This is believed to do good with ones’ value and attitude on environmental management. They come act more consistently with what they believe and tend to identify problems more easily while executing the environmental management, which as a result facilitate the communication of the staff and top management, as well as the proceedings of EMS.

More, in addition to the auditing of the two managers conducting every 4 months mentioned in the above, two auditing teams monitor staff performance and the Lloyds Register Quality Assurance (UK) was responsible for the external auditing every six months.

Challenges faced

ISO 14001 is the standard against which an organization can become certified for EMS. It has to be renewed every 3 years to ensure environmental management undergo on a continuous basis. Like others business sectors, Hotel Island Shangri-La comes across with the workload problem. The introduction of EMS adds workload on both the senior authority and the staff. The regular review of EMS practice add burden to what they originally in charge of. Plus, the introduction of advanced system, for instance, technological system in collecting data of food waste, employee may find it difficult to adapt and not relate as the management do not directly influence their lives or can show obvious result of what to do with the environment. The attitude towards EMS have to be maintain in a way that the employees know what they are doing and contribute to in a long run.

Operational barrier is another challenge. In order to establish EMS, departments operate their best to achieve environmental goals. For instance, they aim to manage food waste in a more environmental friendly way, that is to cooperate with food collectors and have the food waste recycled or further used. However the fact is, there is only a handful of solid waste collectors are registered by the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department (EPD), and most of the solid waste collectors just interested only in reusable paper and/or tin waste due to the higher profit. Due to the lack of solid waste collectors, the result of handling its waste is not as good as expected.

In addition, the government and industry support is of inadequate. As what I have mentioned above, additional costs come with EMS implementation in respect of new technological system introduction, training for staff, and regular auditing work etc. Unfortunately, the support from the government and the industry is so little. Though there was different funding to support related projects and studies, none of them offer direct help to Island Shangri-La. Plus, the government support on recycling industry is too low to provide a comprehensive environment for the hotel and other catering businesses to conveniently undergo recycling work. As a result, it becomes a limiting factor to EMS achievement.