Environmental management system in the food and beverage sector: A case study from Malaysia

Abstract

In the final decades of the twentieth century the concept of sustainable development became an issue of growing interest to national governments, universities, industries, non-governmental organisations and the public. For developing countries in the global south the challenges of achieving sustainable development has brought into sharp focus the tension between delivering socio-economic prosperity whilst protecting and safeguarding environmental and ecological assets. The case of food is especially pertinent where food production occurs at considerable expense to the local and global environment. Within the food production supply chain, attention has been drawn to greenhouse gas emission as a result of large energy usage, chlorofluorocarbon from food refrigeration and embedded emissions once food is wasted. One way to address environmental impacts in the food and beverage (F&B) sector is to increase the adoption of environmental management system (EMS) in the production phase. This study highlights the main findings from empirical research to examine EMS adoption in the F&B manufacturing sector in Malaysia. Drawn from survey questionnaires by 42 companies, the research explores the companies' drivers, barriers, and incentives to the adoption of ISO 14001 standards and concludes with proposed strategies to improve the environmental performance of F&B companies and the industry as a whole. The important finding of this research is the implementation of ISO 14001 standards within Malaysian F&B sector is obstructed by the high implementation cost. Therefore, Malaysian government should increase the stringency of the environmental regulation alongside with the establishment of fiscal incentives to mitigate this barrier.