Present situation of environmental management practices in different manufacturing industries of Bangladesh

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to investigate the drivers and barriers of implementing environmental management system in manufacturing industries of Bangladesh. The study also investigated the current environmental management initiatives taken by different manufacturing industries in Bangladesh and their motivation for adopting the system as well as their level of compliance with the local environmental legislation. To achieve these objectives a questionnaire survey was carried out. A conceptual framework was developed by the common perception of the implementation of EMS in Bangladesh at the outset of the research to frame the study and find suitable literature as well as to design the questionnaire. The questionnaire was primarily developed from the conceptual framework and from the review of the relevant literature. A convenient purposive sampling method was employed to collect data from industries located mainly in industrially populated areas like Dhaka, Chittagong, Gazipur and Narayanganj and popular in their respective manufacturing field. From the study it was found that major drivers of implementing EMS in the manufacturing industries of Bangladesh were international acceptance, compliance to local environmental legislation, international trading, pressure from the customers, production cost reduction and company’s policy for environmental safeguard. The major barriers identified from the study were complexity in the process of EMS, management ignorance of its existence, lack of government incentives and awareness, lack of education and training, high investment and maintenance cost, ignorance of government regulations and socio-economic culture. Results also show that most of the manufacturing industries have developed some from of EMS like waste management, pollution control and energy conservation in their operations. From this study it was realized that manufacturers are still reluctant to implement EMS in the industries.