Adoption of Environmental Management Systems: Perspectives from UK, Finland and Thailand

Environmental supply chain performance measurement and reporting using environmental management systems (EMS) are evolving as new sustainability and societal challenges emerge. However, little research has been conducted to assess the use of appropriate EMS or the adoption of extant standards to understand environmental performance measurement in the logistics and supply chain sectors, or within different country contexts within globalized supply chains. This chapter compares studies undertaken in the UK, Finnish and Thai logistics and supply chain sectors to curate the adoption and use of EMS in each and identify common key enablers and inhibitors. The two most popular EMS are ISO 14001 and the European Union’s Eco-Management Audit Scheme EMAS. However, they have been inconsistently adopted across the various sectors, for example many UK logistics practitioners have developed ‘own company designed’ reporting systems. Further, logistics and supply chain practitioners in all contexts indicated a lack of understanding of EMS with many small firms doing no reporting at all. Key enablers and benefits for adoption are financially linked to customer requirements, waste reduction and operational efficiency. Key inhibitors to effective implementation are a lack of standard measures and reporting systems and government direction for same, and supply chain complexity. Thus, there is currently ‘no one size fits all’ system for reporting environmental supply chain performance and a clear divergence between normative theory and practice.