ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the common elements found in organizational Environmental Management Systems, the links between EMS and Total Quality Management (TQM), common organizational factors which affect the development of an EMS and the limitations of EMS in achieving sustainable practices in organizations. Spedding suggest that in the application of TQM to environmental issues, the customer is replaced by the environment and quality by environmental quality. Ledgerwood suggest that environmental managers, or those attempting to initiate an EMS within an organization, need to market the environment as an issue to senior management, in which an EMS will benefit the enterprise and in a sense providing training to senior management on the relevance of the environmental agenda. Welford & Gouldson suggest that the TQMs ultimate aim for complete lack of defects can incorporate the concept of zeronegative impacts on the environment and that there are close parallels between aiming for TQM and cradle to grave environmental management.
