Examination of witnesses (Questions 580
- 599)
WEDNESDAY 6 MAY 1998
MR MARK
BARTHEL and MR
BRIAN BANNISTER
Dr Iddon
580. That leads us to the question, does
it not, Chairman, are accredited environmental management schemes
and standards themselves the subject of continuing research, in
order to make them more accountable and to attract more people
to take them up?
(Mr Barthel) Absolutely. With EMAS, for example,
as with any regulation, there is a five-year review period, that
review is taking place now; with 14001, within ISO, there is a
requirement for a five-year review. Part of that review process
will obviously draw upon current best practice, because we have
to make sure that the standards that we develop are applicable
to industry, so we bring in everyone from industry that we can,
we bring in consumer groups, we bring in interest groups, we even
bring in pressure groups. Within the ISO committee that 14001
was produced, we had 110 different countries, something like 30
what we term liaison bodies, which included pressure groups like
WWF, the Sierra Club, and so on. So there is a very broad stakeholder
group involved not only in the original drafting of the standards
but also in the review process. So really what we are talking
about is distilling industry best practice into one document and
then using that document and distributing that best practice across
industry.
581. Can you predict at the moment what
might change in the future, or is it too early to say; what are
the main criticisms of the present systems?
(Mr Barthel) I think some of the changes will
be reflected in some of the trends in environmental management.
Whilst a lot of industry now are getting to grips with what we
would broadly term eco-efficiency, in other words, making more
with less, the broader, longer-term trends are obviously towards
sustainability and there is a question about how we might use
these standards to achieve sustainability. To give you an example,
BSI is working with Forum for the Future, which is Jonathan Porritt's
new partnership organisation, to actually look at how we might
use these management systems as a stepping-stone to sustainability.
So they are very flexible, even as they stand. In terms of what
might happen in the future, I think in the international arena
that is actually difficult to determine because of the different
viewpoints and stakeholder views within the process. There are
quite a large number of people within the ISO process now that
would like to see mandatory reporting included in 14001, in exactly
the same way as it is included in EMAS; however, we are talking
about an international standard, and the North Americans in particular
are very, very, what is the word I would use, twitchy about mandatory
environmental reporting being part of a voluntary standard, when
the documentation they produce within that environmental management
system may be used against them in an enforcement action by the
US Environmental Protection Agency. It is a tricky one.
Mr Grieve
582. I just want to come back to the comment
you made earlier about withdrawal of accreditation; you said,
"Well, there have been instances where we have withdrawn
accreditation" and then you said, "Well, I wouldn't
wish to cite the individual instances." Leaving aside whether
it should be cited here within this Committee, is that information
which is readily available to the public, and, if not, why not?
What is the point, you see, of having an accreditation system
if the loss of the accreditation is a matter which is brushed
under the carpet?
(Mr Barthel) Let me answer that in as direct a
way as I possibly can. There are registers maintained of 14001
certified companies, there is an EMAS register in each Member
State; on that register is the name of the organisation, the site
location, and so on, and when they were certified by a certification
body. That is a comprehensive list. Now the only way a member
of the general public might actually determine that a certificate
has been withdrawn is by actually noticing that the list that
is published one month does not include a company from the previous
month.
Mr Shaw
583. We do not all always take the list
of accreditations anyway.
(Mr Barthel) No, and I would not recommend it
either.
Mr Shaw: No; you do
not agree with naming and shaming these companies, you name them
and hold them up and applaud when they receive these accreditations,
but we do not, as my colleague has suggested, shame them when
they have polluted, or whatever, to give an example.
Mr Grieve
584. I appreciate that on the shaming you
have to be careful, you have a view, and I suppose of some of
the libel laws, quite apart from anything else; but it is a question
of, it is your opinion, it is your judgement, basically, accreditation,
they can lose the accreditation, it is a bit like the Michelin
rosette. One might have thought that at least it ought to be a
matter which was capable of being readily available to the public
so that judgements could be made, or at least questions could
be asked, even if you yourselves are not putting out the press
statement, saying, "The reason why this company has lost
its accreditation is X, Y and Z"?
(Mr Bannister) Quite often, one of the critical
elements of accreditation is business to business rather than
business to end consumer, and we increasingly find that ISO 14000
is being driven through the supply chain.
Dr Iddon
585. But why, why should that be, because
I thought we were interested in improving the environment for
the consumer?
(Mr Bannister) I think the best practice industries
lead the way, they have the resources to be able to monitor their
supplies in a way that no consumer could probably ever hope to
do.
586. If I may say, the NHBC, who govern
in a similar way the construction industry, they withdraw certification,
and announce it when they do, in fact. I know a company in the
North West that has just collapsed partly as a result of that.
(Mr Barthel) Perhaps I could make a suggestion,
that someone contacts the UK Accreditation Service and suggests
that to them. It is outside of the guidance that we operate under.
Chairman
587. One of my colleagues mentioned the
Citizen's Charter. When I was Citizen's Charter Minister, for
example, we took the Citizen's Charter away from British Gas,
in a blaze of publicity, and the whole point of taking it away
was actually they knew they would get that publicity, and one
year we gave them a warning and they did not improve enough so
we took it away, and that had the salutary effect, they got a
huge load of bad publicity, and all their radio stuff on Classic
FM, and so on, was rather curious.
(Mr Barthel) Perhaps I have created a misapprehension
here. We do not just give them the badge and walk away at the
end of a certification audit. On a six-monthly basis, we go back
and do a continuing assessment of their compliance with the standard,
so we make sure, within that, that they are still compliant with
the standard but also that they are demonstrating continual improvement.
It is important not to underestimate the value that companies
who go for 14001 or EMAS place on achieving either registration
to EMAS or certification to 14001, because one of the key benefits
is a market-place differentiator for business-to-business activity
and they do not want to lose it.
588. How do you see this going, as you say,
a lot of this is relatively new, 14001, and so forth, and there
are still different kinds of systems, EMAS and 14001, how do you
see it going in the public sector, how can Government, as part
of the Greening Government Initiative, use it, and how far is
it using it at the moment?
(Mr Barthel) Again, there are a number of issues
there. One is, just thinking about it from a policy view, it is
an extremely low-cost or no-cost way of greening your supply chain,
so all the people that supply you, central government, with goods
and services, Government departments with goods and services,
and that is a fairly hefty market, I know that Angela Eagle, last
July, committed the UK Government to a green procurement drive.
I must admit that I actually have not seen too much detail on
that recently. It would be an ideal opportunity for Government——
589. The whole of Government or just her
Department?
(Mr Barthel) The whole of Government.
Mr Shaw
590. Drive?
(Mr Barthel) Drive: is that the operative word;
right.
Dr Iddon
591. Perhaps that is a good point to move
on to Government and EMS in Government departments; in fact, they
seem to have resisted the whole proposition to date and we are
wondering why. We have been talking about shaming companies whose
certification is withdrawn, but what about those companies and
public organisations who have not even applied for accreditation,
do you think that this is very important for Government to lead
the way and to seek accreditation?
(Mr Barthel) I think it is very important for
Government to lead the way. I have lost count recently of the
number of ministerial statements supporting and encouraging industry
to adopt ISO 14001 or EMAS, as a means of improving their environmental
performance, but, judging from the survey that was undertaken,
I do not actually see very many Government departments actually
undertaking 14001 or EMAS.
592. What do you think the barriers are
that are perceived by local and national government to seeking
accreditation; it is more national than local, I think?
(Mr Barthel) The key one is often lack of internal
expertise. Again, we go back to the fact that this is a very young
market, that it is a very new tool, not many people know how to
use it properly. That would then lead on to the fact that if you
do not have internal expertise how do you address that, and my
view would be that you actually train your people, so you train
your civil servants, the people that run these departments, in
how to implement a management system rather than getting consultants
to do it for you, that is a far more costly option. It also means
that, rather than when a consultant walks out of a building at
the end of a project, leaving people almost in the dark, on occasion,
you actually have a motivated and trained team that can push it
forward and actually make sure that this continual improvement
we are so keen on demonstrating actually happens.
Chairman
593. That is more expensive?
(Mr Barthel) No, it is cheaper, it is cheaper
to train your own teams than it is to bring in consultants.
594. Is that so; that is rather interesting,
because training takes time?
(Mr Barthel) Training takes time; there is an
internal cost but then there is also an internal cost of actually
working and liaising with consultancy teams. The long-term outcome
is usually far more preferable when you train your internal people,
because you motivate them, you improve their awareness of environment
as a whole and you improve the way that they view, even with the
high-level things, like policy-making, they actually start to
understand what it is all about.
Mr Shaw
595. When something is new, as you have
described, there is a certain mythology about it and that only
a particular group of specialists can provide that service.
(Mr Barthel) Which is a great shame.
596. Obviously, the people providing that
service are keen to talk that up, but you advocate training and
there are sufficient training agencies around who can provide
that?
(Mr Bannister) Including BSI.
(Mr Barthel) Strangely enough, yes.
597. I think you can get a plug in.
(Mr Bannister) In the dialogue that BSI has had
with Government, one of the issues we have highlighted is the
difference between Government's approach to ISO 9000, the quality
management system a decade ago, and its approach now to ISO 14000.
Government was the key driver behind the growth of ISO 9000 and
it drove it through the supply chain; and that, in our experience,
gave UK companies a real competitive advantage.
Chairman
598. Has that happened with 14001?
(Mr Bannister) It has not yet, and I think Mark
thinks that we have not yet got a critical mass of knowledgeable
people within Government; we did have that with 9000 in the very
early days and I think the training issue is one that we need
to revise.
Mr Grieve
599. So that an early step to doing that
would be for the Government to apply 14001 to its own departments?
(Mr Barthel) Absolutely.
(Mr Bannister) It might well be something that
the Civil Service Training College could look at for fast-track
civil servants; there is a three-day Introduction to Environmental
Management Systems course which civil servants—
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