Review of environmental training practices in selected businesses in Durban.
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Date
2015
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Abstract
Environmental management has moved from a policy concept to a proactive strategy defining
business responsiveness to stakeholder and market-related pressures for more environmentally
sustainable business practices. Paradoxically, the financial benefits accrued to businesses at
the often externalised expense of environmental goods and services, is the very advantage that
best positions it to respond to the environmental crisis. The importance of a systematic and
proactive environmental response from the business community is compelled by the fact that
environmental impacts are predominantly caused by errant pollutant and non-compliant
business activities which is increasingly regulated through South African environmental
legislation. The business response through corporate sustainability and environmental
management is considered a sweeping change to business as usual. Increasing environmental
regulations make the adoption of environmental management systems such as ISO 14001 more
commonplace. In adapting to these changes in the workplace, it makes environmental training
and awareness of employees a material avenue of investigation which further directs the aim of
this study. In applying the ISO 14001 certification criterion, through a purposive and nonprobable
sampling technique, twenty-four (24) Durban businesses have participated in this
study. Similarly, in addition, fifteen (15) employees undergoing environmental training along
with five (5) other role-players and stakeholders that relevantly bear on environmental training
practices participated in this research, which was conducted through the use of survey
questionnaires. The extent of adoption of environmental training and its effective reach across
company structures has been assessed against seven (7) developed environmental training
principles of this study. The selected businesses and other respondents in Durban show keen
awareness, attitudes and perceptions regarding environmental training. Environmental training
is a widely practiced activity across all the businesses sampled with topic coverage focussed
predominantly on waste management, hazardous chemicals, and environmental auditing. The
environmental training activities are largely combined with other Safety and Health priorities.
Whilst this has no perceived negative impact on the content of environmental training, there is
an indication that environmental training budget allocations are not effectively prioritised in
combination with other training activities. The implementation of training across the company
tiers shows executive levels in need of greater exposure to this activity. While the respondents
predominantly showed limited satisfaction with environmental training received, various areas
of improvement became clear such as greater management commitment, greater institutional
assistance for clarity of training standards, course offerings and inter-industry collaboration in
environmental training.
Description
Master of Science in Environmental Science. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.
Keywords
Environmental protection--South Africa--Durban., Environmental education--South Africa--Durban., Environmental management--South Africa--Durban., Business enterprises--Environmental aspects--South Africa--Durban., Sustainable development--South Africa--Durban., Theses--Environmental science.