Environmental Management System (ISO14001) in Railway

Transcription

1 Environmental Management System (ISO14001) in Railway Hiroyuki NOZAWA, Saburo ENDO, Naoto MIFUNE, Yasuo SATO Railway Technical Research Institute Summary Environmental issues become increasingly important for railways. To solve the problem related to these issues, the environmental management system (ISO14001) is very effective. The certification under ISO14001 has rapidly increased in railways in Japan as a drastic environmental measure. This paper introduces some Environmental Management Systems in railways, analyzes the significance of their system and forecasts the trend of environmental management system in railways in the future. Keywords Environmental management system, ISO14001, Global environmental issues 1. Introduction It is pointed out that the rapid increases in global population is the main cause of the current global environmental concerns. To satisfy the needs of people, large amounts of resources and energy are consumed, while exhausting CO 2 and waste materials. It is assumed that these phenomena cause environmental destruction and environmental pollution. After the United Nations meeting, "Earth Summit" held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, several types of issues have been recognized as pollution both on the earth and human beings, such as green house effect gas, shortage of natural resources, destruction of ozone layer and so on. Railways are much affected by these pollutions. Railways that extend almost all over Japan use a huge amount of materials every year. On the other hand, in the UN conference, COP3, in Kyoto in 1997, the targets of decreasing the volume of Green House Effect Gases were decided. Environmental issues, such as recycling waste and reducing of Green House Effect Gases etc. are becoming increasingly important for railways. To solve those problems, environmental management system is very effective. This paper discusses some Environmental Management Systems in railways form several aspects. 2. Environmental issues in railways Railway service is a repeated process which pursues an efficient traffic system and make a high profit by making use of energy and resources, to realize the needs and demands from customers, such as high speed trains, barrier-free stations and low fares. In this process, several secondary pollutants are generated, such as CO 2, NOx, waste, harmful chemicals, heavy metals and so on. Nowadays, attention is paid to these global environmental issues, in addition to regional environmental problems, such as noise and vibration. In order to solve these problems, there are a number of categories of engineering subjects, namely, life cycle assessment, recycling, reusing, reducing, energy saving and so on. It is difficult to take fundamental measures against global environmental problems in dealing with these categories individually. In order to pursue an synthetic solution, environmental management system is indispensable. Then we can build up "Eco-Rail House, to accomplish the Sustainable Development of railway, basing on Environmental management system (Fig. 1) 1). 1/10

2 3. Environmental management system standard (ISO14001) The ISO14000 series standards (Environmental management systems) were established in 1996 by the International Organization for Standardization and then published as JIS Q series by the organization of Japanese Industrial Standardization. It is an international standard that has obtained consensus today, though its adoption is not compulsory. Basically, the way of working and deed of staffs, researchers, engineers and managers, must be friendly for the environment, from which fruitful results and countermeasures can be obtained. In order to attain this purpose, the ISO14001 standard (Environmental management system - Specification with guidance for use) is effective as a guideline. This standard claims continual improvement of "Commitment and Policy-Planning-Implementation-Measurement and Evaluation-Review and Improvement" (Fig. 2) in regard to environmental objectives and targets, such as minimizing use of paper, energy saving actions, water reuse and so on. The ISO14001 standard has 18 Chapters and 52 requirements. 2/10

3 This program is audited by a third party every year, and only registered organizations can make certification for ISO ISO14001 has already been adopted in more than hundred countries. In Japan, the number of organizations registered for ISO14001 reached over 6,500 in June 2001 (Fig. 3), and this accounts for approximately 20 percent of the total registration in the world. 3/10

4 4. Registration of ISO14001 in railways in Japan In 1999, a railway organization was registered for ISO14001 first in Japan. In June 2001, twenty-two railway organizations are registered for ISO14001 (Table 1), including nine JR and thirteen private railways. There are dozens of railway-related organizations registered for ISO14001, but few detailed data are available on those organizations. The total number of railway registration, including railway and railway-related organizations, accounts for approximately one percent of the total registration in Japan. The first registration in the railway is delayed several years when compared with the electric, electronic and chemical industries. Among the railways registered for ISO14001, the following tendencies are seen. Five railways were registered in 1999 and eight in 2000 to amount to nine in total as of 2001 July. This shows that the registration is increasing every year. There are thirteen case of registration in the maintenance section of railway vehicle, in addition to some in the headquarter, electricity, power generation, research, machine, design and other sections (Fig. 4). On the other hand, in railway-related organizations, registration has been made in the leisure, hotel, cleaning, building maintenance and so on. This shows that the railway business is an integrated service. 4/10

5 5. Analysis of ISO14001 in railways 5.1 Investigation of ISO14001 in railways In order to analyze the significance of ISO14001 in railways, we investigated environmental management system of eight railway organizations registered for ISO14001, including five JR and three private railways. The following are the result of analyzing important aspects. 5.2 Purpose of ISO14001 in railways The purpose for obtaining registration for ISO14001 in railways is as follows. 1) Achievement of social responsibility as an important transportation facility 2) Effective improvement of enterprise management 3) Improving the image for citizens and customers 4) Objective evaluation of environmental management system On the other hand, according to the result of a questionnaire survey of 1,500 organizations by the Japan Accreditation Board for Conformity Assessment, the purpose for obtaining registration in all industries is as follows (Fig. 5). 1) Company group policy 2) Development and promotion for environmental continual improvement 3) Communicating with general public on environmental protection efforts 4) Compliance with legislation and regulations and prevention of environmental risks 5) Requirement of customers or business passport This shows that the purpose of other industries is different from the railway. 5/10

6 5.3 Environmental policy The environmental policy is defined by the top management, and is open to the public in general. The number of average characters of the environmental policy is 836 characters, and is most 1074 characters, and the smallest 611 characters (Fig. 6). Concrete execution items are as follows. 1) Resource saving 2) Energy saving 3) Reduction of waste 4) Recycling, etc. In addition, there are some organizations that took up afforestation activity, communicating with the general public and improvement of the accuracy of the vehicle maintenance. 6/10

7 5.4 Environmental aspects Environmental aspects are an element of organizational activities, products or services that can interact with the environment. Organization should investigate environmental aspects concerning the activities, the products and the services. And organization should decide environmental aspects that have or can have a significant environmental impact as significant environmental aspects. The items specified as significant environmental aspects in railways are energy (electric power and fuel), paper, medicines, organic solvents, CO 2, fluorocarbon, waste, drain and so on (Table 2). 5.5 Environmental objects Table 3 shows an example of environmental objects in railways. The typical environmental objects set in railways are energy saving (electric power and fuel), reduction of waste (including paper) and so on. Moreover, there are two organizations that set the improvement of the accuracy of vehicle maintenance as an environmental object. This reflects the feature of railway and is based on the idea that the breakdown of vehicle contradicts energy conservation and resource saving. 7/10

8 6.Trend of ISO14001 in railways in the future The future of ISO14001 in railways is anticipated to depend on the tendency in the electric, electronic and chemical industries as summarized below. The organizations registered for ISO14001 expand from in-house to outside sections, in the following order. 1) Organizations where approach to registration is comparatively easy (e.g., factories, etc.) 2) Other organizations and headquarters 3) Group companies 4) Related companies 5) Supplier and contracted companies The purpose for obtaining registration changes from an internal factor to external target factor such as: 1) Social contribution and mission 2) Utility and effect (cost reduction, etc.) 3) Company group policy 4) Registering trend of other companies 5) Pressure and demand from customers, residents, public opinions (municipalities), and NGOs (e.g., green purchasing, etc.) In addition, after registered for ISO14001, environmental information of organizations is being disclosed by means of: 1) Issue of annual environmental report 2) Executing environmental accounting 3) Enhancement of environmental communications In railways, registration has been beginning mainly in the maintenance sections for railway vehicles, where the application of ISO14001 is comparatively easy and has a large environmental impact. Nowadays, the approach to the environmental management system has progressed to the acquisition of the certification of ISO14001 in larger or linear area organizations such as the headquarters, electricity, research, machine and other sections. In the future, it is anticipated that an integrated system that widely covers the different sections and organizations be constructed as ISO14001 will thoroughly be understood. On the other hand, the most important mission of railways is undoubtedly "Safety." In addition, a sound "Finance" is also indispensable for railway companies to survive. As a base to support 8/10

9 these requests for safety and sound finance, high "Quality" and sound "Environment" of railway systems are hoped for and essentially required (Fig. 7). 7. Conclusions Environmental management system in railways in Japan were discussed from several standpoints. The result are as follows. (1) The purpose for obtaining registration for ISO14001 in railways is achievement of social responsibility as an important transportation facility, efficiency improvement of enterprise management, improving the image for citizens and customers and objective evaluation of environmental management system. (2) There are thirteen case of registration in the maintenance section of railway vehicle, in addition to some in the headquarter, electricity, power generation, research, machine, design and other sections. (3) The feature of the environmental management system in railways is as follows. (a) Concrete execution items in the environmental policy is resource saving, energy saving, reduction of waste and recycling. (b) Items specified as significant environmental aspects in railways are energy (electric power and fuel), paper, medicines, organic solvents, CO 2, fluorocarbon, waste and drain. (c) Typical environmental objects set in railways are energy saving (electric power and fuel), reduction of waste (including paper) and so on. (d) The improvement of the accuracy of vehicle maintenance is an approach specific to railway. Further examinations from a wide viewpoint will be made in the future. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the following organizations who kindly extended cooperated in the investigation. Hakata Sogo Sharyosho, Fukuoka Branch, West Japan Railway Company Kanazawa Car Maintenance Center(Matto), Kanazawa Branch, West Japan Railway Company 9/10

10 Okayama Shinkansen Electric Engineering Depot, Okayama Branch, West Japan Railway Company Kokura Workshop, Kyushu Railway Company Kokura Sharyosho, Kyusyu Branch, Japan Freight Railway Company Technical Research Laboratory, Kinki Nippon Railway Co., Ltd. Maigi Maintenance Center, Nagoya Railroad Co., Ltd. Musashigaoka Rolling Stock Inspection and Repair Yard, Seibu Railway Co., Ltd. References 1) N.Mifune, et al.: Environmental Issues in Railway, Quarterly Report of RTRI, Vol.40, No.4, pp , Dec /10