Environmental management systems in the New Zealand food and beverage sector: cleaning up their act or acting clean?

Abstract

The protection of environmental values relies on an economy that is able to support them. This research presents the nature of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) in the New Zealand Food and Beverage (NZ F&B) sector, which produces almost half of New Zealand's foreign exchange earnings annually. It delineates the current status of EMS in NZ F&B organisations and investigates and tests a number of pertinent aims and hypotheses. The study revealed the following key findings. The point estimate for NZ F&B organisations stating they have an EMS was 25.95%-30.47%. The point estimate for NZ F&B organisations actually having all elements associated with an EMS was 0.74%-19.78%. A Fisher Exact test showed that these parameters were linked. That is, organisations having all 15 EMS elements are more likely to state they have an EMS than those having fewer of the necessary elements. The point estimate for NZ F&B organisations believing that New Zealand's 'clean green' image is a sufficient means of ensuring that their products are perceived as environmentally credible is 14.73%-16.03%. There was no significant difference between the EMS scores of NZ F&B organisations in which fundamental responsibility for environmental management was held at the strategic versus the functional level. EMS score was found not to be correlated, at the 95% confidence level, with: source of earnings, turnover, ownership, perceptions of top management commitment or perceptions of New Zealand's international environmental image. Nor was it correlated with beliefs about whether a country's environmental reputation obviates an organisation from taking additional environmental measures, belief about whether New Zealand's 'clean image' gives products a trading advantage or the respondents' direct level of involvement in environmental matters. Through an evaluation of these results, and characterisation of the trading environment of the NZ F&B sector, the potential impacts of EMS on New Zealand's ability to earn foreign exchange through its F&B sector are explicated. The findings of this research suggest that NZ F&B organisations may be underestimating both the international demand for substantiation of 'clean green' claims and the requirements of the EMS themselves.