THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EMS IN CONSTRUCTION FIRMS: CASE STUDY IN HONG KONG

Raymond Y. C. Tse ()
Additional contact information
Raymond Y. C. Tse: Department of Building and Real Estate, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, P.R.China

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), 2001, vol. 03, issue 02, 177-194

Abstract: It has been increasingly recognised that construction activity imposes external costs to the environment. This paper aims to review the benefits and major problems in the implementation of ISO 14000 EMS in the Hong Kong construction industry. This study surveyed major construction firms in Hong Kong to uncover the hindrance factors contributing to the low adoption of ISO 14000. Based on the findings, this paper identifies and ranks the perceived order which hinders the construction firms' adoption of ISO 14000. The case study in Hong Kong serves as a reference point for understanding the problems in the implementation of ISO 14000 in other countries.Specifically, this study found that the four major obstacles to ISO 14000 implementation are: lack of government pressure; lack of client requirement/supports; expensive implementation cost; and sub-contracting systems, which create difficulties in managing the EMS. Since the government is a very dominant client, the extent to which the Government wishes to restrict its choice of tenderer to those firms that have an environmental management system in place, will demonstrate its commitment to environmentally responsible operations. The public sector clients play a critical role in driving the construction industry to improve its operations through contractual requirements. Education of the end-users is also important to create market demand for environmentally friendly construction. To an extent, professional institutions and other industry bodies can help to instill a greater sense of accountability among industry participants by stipulating acceptable standards of behaviour and establishing a supportive regulatory framework.

Keywords: construction; environmental management; ISO 14000; Hong Kong (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S1464333201000637
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:jeapmx:v:03:y:2001:i:02:n:s1464333201000637

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S1464333201000637

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) is currently edited by Thomas Fischer

More articles in Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().