101 ISO 14001 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR UNIVERSITIES: A CASE STUDY AT HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN VIETNAM Trần Thị Tường Vân 1 và Lê Thị Hồng Trân 2 1 Kho
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ISO 14001 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
FOR UNIVERSITIES: A CASE STUDY AT HO CHI MINH CITY
UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN VIETNAM
Trần Thị Tường Vân 1 và Lê Thị Hồng Trân 2
1
Khoa Môi trường và Công nghệ sinh học, Trường đại học Kỹ thuật Công nghệ TP.HCM
2
Khoa Môi trường, Trường đại học Bách khoa – Đại học quốc gia TP.HCM
TÓM TẮT
Theo xu hướng hiện nay, vấn đề bảo vệ môi trường trong giáo dục đại học ngày càng được quan tâm nhiều hơn Thực tế là, các hoạt động đa dạng diễn ra trong trường đại học sẽ dẫn đến những tác động trực tiếp và gián tiếp nghiêm trọng đến môi trường
Sự suy giảm và ô nhiễm môi trường gây bởi các trường đại học dưới dạng tiêu thụ nguyên liệu, năng lượng và thải bỏ chất thải thông qua các hoạt động dạy học và nghiên cứu, cung cấp các dịch vụ hỗ trợ và từ các khu cư trú Ngoài ra, với sứ mệnh đào tạo của mình, trường đại học còn có vai trò quan trọng trong công tác giáo dục nâng cao nhận thức về bảo vệ môi trường cho cộng đồng Một giải pháp quản lý môi trường thích hợp là thiết lập hệ thống quản lý môi trường (HTQLMT) và tiến đến đạt chứng nhận ISO 14001 cho trường đại học Bài báo đề cập đến nghiên cứu điển hình tại trường đại học Kỹ thuật Công nghệ TP.HCM (HUTECH) – là đề tài đầu tiên trong nước nghiên cứu xây dựng HTQLMT theo ISO 14001 cho nhóm đối tượng trường đại học Bài báo
đã xác định các khía cạnh môi trường đáng kể, các mục tiêu và chỉ tiêu môi trường cho HUTECH HTQLMT theo ISO 14001 cũng được thiết lập, bao gồm mô hình HTQLMT, sổ tay môi trường, một số thủ tục và các biện pháp hỗ trợ
Từ khoá: ISO 14001, hệ thống quản lý môi trường (HTQLMT), trường đại học Kỹ thuật Công nghệ TP.HCM (HUTECH)
INTRODUCTION
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH), located in Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, was established in 1995 HUTECH offers courses in 35 disciplines at four levels including university, college, intermediate and vocational training with a total enrollment of over 10,000
In fact, the various complex activities taking place in campus have some serious direct and indirect impacts on the environment The universitiy causes environmental pollution and degradation in form of energy and material consumption via activities and operations in teaching and research and provision of support services
Nevertheless, HUTECH‘s existing environmental management practices only focus on cleaning and solid waste collection The university has partially classified solid waste at source for recycling Usually the cleaning team is in charge of collecting recyclable solid waste including old newspapers, old reports, old theses , but this work is not officially written in the job description While the problem of wastewater and solid waste generated from laboratories (of which most are hazardous waste) is still not solved completely by classifying and treating separately Solid waste from laboratory operations and from other areas is collected together Wastewater from labs is not collected and treated separately but is discharged directly into the main drainage system In addition, most of labs also do not have equipments to control air pollution except some ceiling and wall ventilation fans
The university has no specialized environmental management personnel but several units in charge of the fields related to the environment Materials and Equipment department takes care of campus hygiene and waste collection (Cleaning team); supervises electricity and water saving; and inspects labour and fire safety Medical staff plays a certain role in the work of disease prevention Politics – Student work department combines with unions such as youth union and student union to organize extra-curricular activities such as green summer campaign, special days for environment,
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etc Faculty of Environment and Biotechnology develops more types of environmental communication such as Environment and Human contest, Greentech club, Environment and Human general subject, etc
That was also the general condition of most universities in Vietnam at present In our country, the issue of environmental protection in higher education is not paid adequate attention There is no specialized environmental management personnel in universities, and of course, an environmental management system (EMS) has not been established None of the domestic universities has already implemented ISO 14001 standard Number of researches and documentation on this topic is still very small
Meanwhile, in the world, the integration of environmental aspects and sustainable development in higher education have been carried out very early, a lot of studies and documentation on this issue have been made Many universities have committed themselves to associate the concept of environment and sustainability into lecture halls and in all their activities The number of universities around the world who have been established an EMS and get ISO 14001 certification is significantly increasing There are many studies about EMS of university (Delakowitz et al., 2000; Noeke, 2000; University of Missouri Rolla, 2000; Dahle et al., 2001; EPA, 2001; Michael, 2002; University of North Carolina, 2003; University of Texas M.D Anderson Cancer Center, 2004; Savely et al., 2006; and Lraeme et al., 2007) The ISO 14001 standard has been implemented by a large number of universities in Europe and USA, such as the University of Gävle in Sweden, the Glamorgan University in UK, the University of Applied Science Hochschule Zittau / Görlitz in Germany, the University of Missouri Rolla and the University of Texas in USA This number is much larger if it is included universities that have an EMS, or integrate environmental issues and sustainability into training
Michael Shriberg (2002) found that The University of Michigan Housing Division‘s (Housing) study on creating an EMS based on sustainability develops a rationale for organizational alignment with sustainability and assesses leading edge practices The study recommends altering Housing‘s current mission statements as well as creating a freestanding sustainability mission statement The study includes sustainability assessments of 11 operational and decision-making areas The assessments extend beyond traditional environmental audits by developing sustainability visions, prioritized recommendations and indicators for each area The study, which forms the basis
of Housing‘s current environmental initiatives, concludes that sustainability management of university
Peter Viebahn (2001) indicated that an environmental management model for universities: from environmental guidelines to staff involvement This model had applied at the University of Osnabrück, the basis for a university-related EMS has been developed for the first time in Germany, the use of which is also possible by other universities Beginning autumn 1999, this EMS had gradually been implemented at the University of Osnabrück
In addition, Barnes and Jerman (2002) have developed an EMS for a multiple-university consortium in South Carolina‘s three research universities — Clemson, Medical University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina Mason I.G et al (2002) showed that implementation of a zero waste program at a university campus A zero waste program was established at a university campus in response to grassroots student concern over environmental management issues The implementation procedure consisted of initial discussions with academic and local authority staff at a university environmental forum, the formation of a working group, the preparation of a funding proposal and the establishment of an externally funded research, educational and promotional program led by an academic staff member Support from senior management existed in the form of a written environmental policy and a signed commitment to environmental responsibility in tertiary education and university funding support followed the success of the initial funding application
Moreover, Habib M et al (2008) stated that an integrated approach to achieving campus sustainability has been applied Universities can nowadays be regarded as ‗small cities‘ due to their large size, population, and the various complex activities taking place in campuses, which have
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some serious direct and indirect impacts on the environment The environmental pollution and degradation caused by universities in form of energy and material consumption via activities and operations in teaching and research, provision of support services and in residential areas could be considerably reduced by an effective choice of organizational and technical measures Although many environmental protection measures can be seen at some universities, but a more systematic and sustainable approach to reducing the negative impacts of those activities and making the campuses more sustainable, is generally lacking Therefore, this study proposes a framework of a more suitable approach to achieving campus sustainability that could remedy the limitations of the current environmental management practices in universities and ensure more sustainability through the integration of three strategies, namely: university EMS; public participation and social responsibility; and promoting sustainability in teaching and research
Therefore, the goal of this paper is to orient an ISO 14001 EMS for HUTECH in order to improve the environmental protection at university From that point, the result of this study has been formed the basis of more researches into establishing an EMS according to ISO 14001 for other domestic universities later on
METHODS
The study is based on the following methods:
A domestic and foreign literature review concerning the establishment of an university EMS (ISO 14001)
A survey of the reality of environmental management at HUTECH
To take advice from expert in EMS (ISO 14001)
To analyse, synthesise and compare the surveyed data and documentation
PDCA methodology was developed by Deming: the Deming Cycle with 4 steps (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is applied to ISO 14001 EMS
Risk Assessment Matrix (Tran, 2008) was used to identify the significant environmental aspects in HUTECH:
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Proposal ISO 14001 EMS model for HUTECH
The proposal ISO 14001 EMS model for HUTECH consisting of three phases is based on the EMS model developed at the University of South Carolina (Susanne et al., 2006) as shown in Table
1
Table 1 ISO 14001 EMS implementation model for HUTECH ISO 14001 EMS implementation model
Phase I - Gaining top management support + Necessary first step to implementation
- Defining an accountability
structure
+ Include individuals throughout the institution in general categories and by specific name
+ Incorporate these elements into institutional committee
+ To indentify risk
frequency (F)
Rarely: 1 time per
month (1 point)
Sometimes: 1 times per
week (2 points)
Regularly: every day
(3 points)
+ To indentify risk effect (E)
Little: below the standard (1 point) Medium: meet the standard (2 points) Major: exceed the standard (3 points)
+ To assess risk (R)
Risk (R) = Frequency (F) x Effect (E)
R = 1 - 4 points: no need to concern
R = 5 - 9 points: significant environmental aspect
to be controlled and improved
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meetings and other routine meetings as standing agenda items rather than set up other meetings, when possible
- Identifying legal requirements + Having a procedure in place provides assurance that a
process exists for tracking, implementing and updating legal requirements and best practices Many colleges and universities use a compliance calendar tool
- Reviewing operations and
identifying activities that may
affect the environment
+ Examples include hazardous waste handling, energy usage, etc Activities are used to determine significant aspects (‗‗activities, products or services that can interact with the environment‘‘ )
- Developing an environmental
policy
+ An ‗‗environmental mission statement‘‘
Phase
II
- Creating environmental
programs with objectives and
targets and monitoring and
measuring environmental
operations
+ Environmental aspects determined in previous step/element are used to develop environmental programs, goals and numerical targets within the goals for the institution
+ After identifying environmental activities, aspects, objectives and targets, an institution is able to determine what to monitor and measure
- Establishing a document
control system and documentation
+ Documentation regarding the EMS and the associated procedures are typically kept online, with the only current versions designated, as such Printed versions are marked uncontrolled An electronic system is very beneficial in reducing volumes of paperwork Time frames for storage
of environmental records should be established
- Creating and implementing
required environmental procedures
+ Many types of environmental and EMS procedures are needed to have a formal EMS in place such as those to minimize deviation from the environmental policy, objectives and targets, to identify ‗‗operating criteria,‘‘ to control significant environmental aspects, to ‗‗identify potential for and respond to emergency situations, and for preventing and mitigating the environmental impacts that may be associated with them,‘‘ to correct environmental non-conformances, and to manage and store environmental records
+ Environmental emergency procedures, should include how to handle environmental releases
+ In performing routing inspections and after various incidents, issues that need resolving (non-conformances) will be noted, thus it is important to have procedures in place to resolve these issues that may have an environmental impact
- Training and communication + Training must be tailored to institution and different
stakeholders at the institution to increase support and buy
in
+ A communications log may be used to track communications, particularly external communications with regulators In most cases, established communication plans and methods may be used
Phase
III
- Auditing by internal and external
parties
+ Internal audits are important but usually biased It is critical to obtain third party audits, however, they can be expensive A more economical route is to arrange for subject matter expert peer reviews from other colleges and universities
Proposal ISO 14001 EMS for HUTECH
Structure and responsibility
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The following EMS structure for HUTECH (Figure 1) is based on the requirements of ISO
14001 and the current organizational structure
1 President
- To define the environmental policy
- To appoint the environmental management representation
- To provide finance and other necessary resources to establish and maintain the EMS effectively
- To approve the environmental handbook, environmental goals, environmental targets, environmental management programs and other documentation of the EMS
- To command and decide in emergency situations
- To preside over the management review meeting, giving the final decision to maintain and improve the EMS
2 Environmental management representation
- To establish, to implement and to maintain the ISO 14001 EMS
- To produce the environmental hanbook, environmental goals, environmental targets and to submit them for the president‘s approval
- To produce the environmental management programs in co-operation with the heads of the units
- To assign specific tasks to involved units and individuals
-To write general procedures of the EMS, to manage related environmental documents and records
- To coordinate with other units in order to consider and evaluate environmental aspects of the units
- To organize the measurement and inspection of environmental goals and targets
- To receive and to handle internal and external information on the environment
- To plan the annual EMS internal audit for the whole campus
- To report on the EMS performance and to propose opportunities for the EMS improvement
- To provide facilities for the management review meetings
3 Heads of departments and faculties
- To support all activities of the environmental management representation
PRESIDENT
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT REPRESENTATION
VICE PRESIDENT
Politics – Student work
VICE PRESIDENT
Planning - Finance Materials - Equipment
VICE PRESIDENT
Learning by doing
Center
Center Chief
Figure 1 Organisation chart of
HUTECH EMS
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- To assign tasks to staff of the unit in order to ensure the implementation, maintenance and continuous improvement of the EMS
- To identify and evaluate environmental aspects
- To define the environmental goals and targets of the unit
- To bear full responsibility for achieving the environmental goals and targets of the unit
- To deploy the activities, to measure, to tackle and to prevent
Environmental policy
A reasonable environmental policy (Table 2) will ensure the effectiveness of the HUTECH EMS
Significant environmental aspect
Based on emission source statistics at HUTECH, documents on environmental protection of universities in the world and in consultation with environmental management staff at HUTECH, the study has identified a list of environmental aspects (Table 3) corresponding to the training activities
of HUTECH From that point, five significant environmental aspects of HUTECH are determined
by risk assessment matrix method
Environmental goals and targets: For each significant environmental aspect, the study sets
environmental goals and targets with an estimated completion time in the condition of practical activities at HUTECH and legal requirements in force, as shown in Table 4
Environmental Procedures
Besides, the study also puts forward several required environmental procedures for HUTECH EMS, including Identifying significant environmental aspects procedure, Identifying legal and other requirements procedure, Communication procedure, Solid waste and hazardous waste management procedure, Monitor and measure procedure, Nonconformance and corrective and preventive action procedure, Record keeping procedure and Management review procedure
Table 2 Environmental policy of HUTECH
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology has the mission of multidisciplinary and multi-sector training
to provide qualified manpower for the industrialization and modernization in Vietnam generally and Southern Vietnam areas particularly In fact, the activities taking place in campus bring about the consumption of energy, materials and chemicals as well as the emission of corresponding waste, especially wastewater and hazardous waste generated in laboratories Therefore, we realise that the environmental management must be is one of the important issues for our operation
Our basic approach is to minimize the harmful impacts on the environment and to integrate the issues of environment and sustainable development into communication activities, in the pursuit of a sustainable society
We determine to set up the ISO 14001 environmental management system and commit as follows:
1 To comply with environmental legal requirements in Vietnam and other requirements
2 To save power, water and materials, as well as to reduce environmental pollution
3 To aim to keep the environment clean:
- To make sure that the parameters of exhaust, wastewater and noise reach Vietnamese standards;
- To manage solid and hazardous waste;
- To ensure the work environment clean and airy
4 To promote environmental education activities
5 To improve the EMS continuously
Our environmental policy shall be communicated to all employees and made available to the public and the stakeholders
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Table 3 Evaluation of HUTECH environmental aspects
evaluation
=F*
E
Significant environmental aspect
Consumed electricity Normal 775,040 KWh/yr 3 1 3
Consumed water Normal 40,377 m3/yr 3 1 3
Consumed petrol (for dynamo) Ab-normal 210 L/yr 1 1 1
Domestic wastewater Normal 37,000 m3/yr 3 1 3
Wastewater from labs Normal 2,500 m3/yr 2 3 6 Significant Domestic solid waste Normal 1,200 ton/yr 3 2 6 Significant
Hazardous solid waste from labs Normal 45,000 kg/yr 2 3 6 Significant Hazardous chemical gases from labs Normal - 2 3 6 Significant
Exhaust from printing and photocopier shop Normal - 3 1 3
Noise from printing and photocopier shop Normal - 3 1 3
Environmental education Normal - 2 3 6 Significant
Note: Risk = F.E > 4: significant environmental aspect
(1): Air pollution; (2): Water pollution; (3): Soil pollution; (4): Noise; (5): Resource exhaustion; (6): Human health; (7): Others
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Table 4 HUTECH environmental goals and targets
Environmen-tal aspect
Environmental goal
time
Hazardous
chemical gases
from labs
To reduce, collect and treat chemical gases
To ventilate labs in order to comply with the labor sanitation standards, issued together with the Minister of Health's Decision No
3733/2002/QD-BYT ; To collect and treat chemical gases from lab hoods in order to comply with TCVN 5937:2005 (Air quality – Ambient air quality standards) and TCVN 5938:2005 (Air quality – Maximum allowable concentration of harzardous substances in ambient air)
To Jun 2010
Wastewater
from labs
To collect and treat labs wastewater separately
To collect and treat labs wastewater in order to comply with TCVN 5945:2005 (Industrial water – Discharge standards)
To Jun 2010
Domestic solid
waste
To manage domestic solid waste
To classify domestic solid waste at source; To build a hygienic waste transfer station on the campus; To contract with the ―Rac Dan Lap‖ -
a local unit, for the collection of classified waste
To Jun 2010
Hazardous
solid waste
from labs
To manage labs hazardous solid waste
To classify hazardous solid waste at source; To contract with an unit in hazardous waste treatment and disposal for the collection of classified hazardous waste; To register hazardous waste source at the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural resources and
Environment
To Jun 2010
Environmental
education
To promote environmental education for the whole campus
To add the subject ―Environment and Human‖
to the curriculum as a general course for other majors; To incorporate sustainability into research activities of lecturers and students; To enhance communication activities on the environmental topics
To Dec 2010
Proposal support solutions for the EMS at HUTECH
The following framework (Figure 2) is proposal integrated measures to support the EMS of HUTECH
Campus in general
Environmen tal organizati onal structure
Support
solutions
Energy, water and
materials efficiency Waste management and treatment Environmen tal education Environmen tal law compliance
Domestic wastewater collection and treatment
Domestic solid waste management
Campus labs
Pollution prevention and reduction
Exhaust collection and treatment
Wastewater collection and treatment
Solid waste management Laboratory planning
Figure 2 Framework of the proposed support solutions for HUTECH EMS
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Energy, water and materials efficiency
Additional cleaner production sollutions should be carried out at HUTECH for energy, water and materials saving:
+ Energy efficiency
- To replace old fluorescent bulbs with energy - saving bulbs
- To install electronic ballasts
- To take natural light by using glass widespreadly in building
- To fit up thermal insulation system for roof
- To install additional ventilation fans for some places, especially for labs
- To use lights, fans, air conditioners, office equipment and laboratory equipment effectively (turn off equipments when not in use)
- To maintain regular air conditioner maintenance
- To comply with the Vietnamese construction regulation QCXDVN 09:2005 on "Energy efficient construction‖ and related legal documents for new buildings
+ Water efficiency
- To repair plumbing problems, to install new valves for preventing leakage
- To set up water circulation for cooling equipments in labs
+ Materials efficiency
- To save office stationery (to salvage used papers for printing, etc.)
- To manage lab chemicals in accordance with the programmed process in computer and in papers
Waste management and treatment
For campus in general
+ Domestic wastewater collection and treatment
- To separate domestic wastewater collection system from rainwater collection system
-To build a domestic wastewater treatment system to comply with QCVN 14:2008/BTNMT (National technical regulation on domestic wastewater) before to discharge wastewater into the city sewers or to reuse wastewater in toilet flushing, irrigation and fire fighting purposes
+ Domestic solid waste management
Domestic solid waste generated from offices, classrooms and campus include surplus food, carton, papers, package, can, leaves, etc and also a small amount of hazardous waste such as batteries, fluorescent lights, medical waste, etc Waste classification at source should be performed
by using four-compartment dustbins Each partition is used for each type of waste, including papers, package (nylon, plastic, glass, metal, etc), organic garbage and inorganic garbage Organic waste and inorganic waste will be collected by the local unit Scrap papers and package for the purpose of recycling and reusing will be sold to create revenue for environmental protection activities at campus
For campus labs
+ Pollution prevention and reduction
To eliminate or to reduce pollution at source is executed by using alternative chemicals with less hazardousness and low toxicity, recovering, reusing chemicals such as solvents, precious metals, etc
+ Exhaust collection and treatment
Primary labs emission is a source of chemical vapor such as acid (HNO3, H2SO4, etc.), solvent, etc from fume hoods Laboratory should be installed one piping system to collect chemical vapor from hoods to one treatment system based on the adsorption principle
In addition, some gases such as SO2, NH3, produced from reactions as well as chemical vapor in labs should be reduced by ceiling and wall ventilation fans and a following complete ventilation system
+ Wastewater collection and treatment
Labs wastewater could be classified into three main types, including experiment fluid (wastewater generated in the process of experiment), tool washing wastewater and domestic wastewater
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- The experiment fluid often contains acids, bases with low concentration: H2SO4, HCl, NaOH and metal ions: Fe, Al, Mg, Ca; organic compounds, inorganic salts
- The tool washing wastewater contains only a small amount of chemicals, but many detergents (surface-active substances) with relatively high flow
Each type of labs wastewater has different characteristics and flow, therefore, to separate them is required for following appropriate treatment measures
The first step: To separate wastewater
- To prepare containers for experiment fluid: containers must be labelled, such as used for what experiment, etc
- To install another pipeline to separate tool washing wastewater from domestic wastewater
The second step: To treat wastewater
- For experiment fluid: To contract one capable unit of treating this kind of fluid for periodly collection
- For washing wastewater: To build a wastewater treatment system on the campus, which is based on treatment technologies for wastewater containing mercury, cyanide, fluoride, alkaline, heavy metals, chromic acid, solvent, etc, for the compliance with TCVN 5945:2005 (Industrial water – Discharge standards)
+ Solid waste management
Most solid waste from labs containing hazardous chemicals should be consequently classified from domestic garbage as follows:
+ To use two types of dustbin in labs:
- The first is to contain domestic garbage, including food scraps, packaging of all kinds, etc (waste classification at source on the whole campus)
- The second is to contain labs waste, such as absorbent papers, washcloth, bottles, glass fragments, etc
+ Domestic garbage is collected daily by the cleaning team while labs waste is stored in specific tanks and then collected weekly by a contracted unit
+ Laboratory planning
- To build one laboratory zone in campus reserved for all departments having labs
- To establish one laboratory complex outsite the campus reserved for various universities
Environmental education
- To organize training courses on the saving of resources (energy, water and materials), the waste classification, the labs pollution preventing and reduction, and the EMS for the involved subjects (staff and students - pupils)
- To organize symposia on these topic for researchers and lecturers, instead of the one-way training form
- To organize forums and workshops on the theme of environment and sustainable development for students
- To hold contests with content of the environment in such forms: drawing, writing, telling, fun quizze, art, fashion, etc
- To publish digests of the environment (internal circulation)
- To set up more environmental clubs
- To set up volunteer teams for the environment, participating in waste management on the campus and in other areas
- To promote communication activities in order to raise the community awareness of environmental protection with the participation of the whole campus: green summer campaign, channels, rivers, streets, markets cleaning campaigns, etc
Environmental law compliance
- To register hazardous waste source at the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural resources and Environment
- To comply with the law on environmental impact assessment, environmental protection commitment and environmental protection project