Future Challenges
Environmental issues are closely associated with some of the major challenges organizations will face in the coming decades. Such issues include:
- Increasing interests of communities located adjacent to industrial facilities. The public interest in activities will continue to impact decisions at these facilities. Organizations should be committed to being a good neighbor and responding to community environmental concerns is critical to gaining and maintaining community support.
- Environmental regulatory requirements will continue to grow as new information on possible concerns becomes available. An EMS may allow an organization or facility to identify and address concerns before they reach regulatory status or the EMS will ensure that mechanisms are in place to achieve compliance when new regulations are enacted.
- Increases in funding and manpower resources to address facility management issues are unlikely.
These and other challenges point to the need for a better way to reconcile mission, environmental, and community issues. In the past, environmental programs at facilities have focused on regulatory compliance as the goal and accepted standard for environmental management. That approach may not suffice in the future.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
7-5. Which of the following is considered a future challenge to the success of the EMS?
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