Relationships
The EMS is the structure within which the other firm-wide and operational concepts on the staircase can be
implemented. Of course this requires a management commitment to implement the other concepts in an
organized fashion. An EMS can be limited to only one aspect of a firm’s operations, such as pollution control
systems, or it can be very comprehensive, even including external strategies to get involved in industrial
ecology. This is the big problem with the relationship of EMS to all the other concepts; a management system
only does what you want it to do. An EMS can address all of the concepts below and above, only one
or two of them, or none of them. A firm can have an EMS that ensures it pollutes as much as possible. It
is up to the management to decide in what direction the system is supposed to improve.