Original Article

, Volume: 12( 11)

Perception of Industrial Enterprise about the Management of Environmental Impacts towards to Standards ISO 14001: 2015: The Case of the Industrial Companies of Casablanca-Settat Region Morocco

*Corresponding Author:

El Hour S Laboratory of Biotechnology, Environment and Quality, Faculty of Science Ibntofail University, PO Box 133, 14000, Kenitra, Morocco Tel: 212-537374052 E-mail: s.elhour@gmail.com

Abstract

An environmental impact is all the functional, qualitative and quantitative changes in the environment caused by an action, activity, process, process, product, organization design to end of life. The changes and the feedback generated can be positive or negative from the standpoint of the environment. The environmental impact assessment is a method used in the context of ISO 14001 when it implements an environmental analysis. The objective of this scientific paper is to show that the environmental impact is now an essential tool to support sustainable development; it is undeniable that this logic seems rewarding to ensure optimal implementation of environmental management system.

Keywords

Environmental management; Environmental impact; ISO 14001 v 2015; Industrial enterprises

Introduction

ISO 14001: 2015 describes the requirements for the environmental management approach that can be used by the company to ensure the improvement of systematic environmental performance and to manage environmental responsibilities in a systematic way that contributes to the process of continuous improvement of the environmental system.

The new ISO 14001: 2015 facilitates industrial companies to obtain the positive results of their environmental management system to manage environmental impacts from targeted results there: the continuous improvement of environmental performance approach, compliance with regulatory and statutory provisions, and the respect of the Charter of the environmental policy. This standard now provides the following requirements:

• The orientation of the company to strategic environmental management as a strategic choice, commitment and effective leadership involvement.

• The implementation of proactive initiatives to ensure environmental protection against the effects of climate change and preserve sustainable resources.

• Adopting a lifecycle perspective to ensure that environmental aspects are addressed from design to end of life.

• L introduction of a communication strategy based on the interveners.

The purpose of an environmental management system approach is oriented towards the continuous improvement of the environmental performance of the organization as a whole, the environmental management system is an important step towards sustainable development, to keep within legal requirements and regulatory requirements, to ensure the continuous improvement of environmental protection by the control and monitoring of all processes in the body, strengthen environmental responsibility an organization and implement an environmental policy open way of environmental protection. It is therefore essential to take action to remove even reduce the negative effects [1] and to adopt an environmental policy, whether this company is large and small, are also committed firmly in this direction [2].

Environmental Impact Approach

Environmental systems are not static, but change over the course of time even without the influence of man. Some are very dynamic, while others only change imperceptibly [3], in this context; the environmental impacts are defined as any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from activities, products or services of an organization.

The study of environmental impact is a process that, at the very beginning of planning, identifies and assesses the risks of environmental impacts from any company's production activity. It establishes the measures that can be adopted to counter the negative environmental effects or to reduce them to acceptable levels beforehand. It represents a proactive and preventive approach to environmental management and protection.

Therefore, an environmental impact qualifies any change to the environment in a negative or positive in a positive direction, and wholly or partially resulting from activities, products or services of an organism, microorganism. The term environmental impact factors determine the impact on the environment and the habitat of a species in its biological environment ( Figure 1).

Environmental assessment

Environmental impact assessment is the process of identifying, predicting, evaluating, and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant effects of development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made [4]. It’s a key instrument in development planning and the use of company resources. It is the consideration of environmental concerns in all phases of the project has environmental management, including its design, operation and evaluation, if any. Environmental Impact Assessment is one of the most important tools employed in contemporary Environmental management. It’s takes into account all components of the biophysical and human environments likely to be affected by the activity of production of the company. It allows analyzing and interpreting the relationships and interactions between factors that influence on ecosystems, resources and quality of life of individuals and communities. The comparison and selection of realization of such production activity variants are intrinsic to the environmental assessment process. The impact study therefore highlights clearly the objectives. The environmental assessment takes into consideration the views, reactions and the main concerns of individuals, groups and communities. In this regard, it reports how various stakeholders have been involved in the planning process of an activity of production and reflects the results of the investigations. The environmental assessment is intended to highlight the issues associated with the activity of production and determines the environmental components that will undergo a significant impact. The relative importance of an impact helps to identify issues on which to base choices and decision making.

The impact of environmental studies in Morocco

The environmental impact assessments on to assess a priori investment projects the impact on the environment to provide the necessary measures to eliminate, mitigate or compensate for adverse impacts and enhance positive impacts of the project.

The impact studies on environment system was implemented at the industrial park in the region Casablanca-Settat a progressive manner through several stages. Between 1994 and 2003, were of the environment impact on summer studies carried out on a voluntary basis by industrials project promoters or requested by international donors or particular sensitivity reasons a receiving environment of a project or an arbitration dissenting opinions concerning land use.

The second stage, between 2003 and 2008, began with the adoption of Law No. 12-03 on the impact of environmental studies (EIA), now the legislative reference to the principle of the impact study. Even in the absence of implementing regulations of this Act, an EIA review process has settled at national level.

With the enactment in 2008 of implementing decrees of Law No. 12-03 relating to study environmental impact, it has entered a new milestone marked by the decentralization of the review process of studies impact on the environment and the consideration of the opinion of the population in the environmental assessment of projects. This required great efforts for the organization, adopting a structured approach to the assessment of environmental impact study process and sustained support for strengthening capacities of stakeholders in this process.

Report on the environmental impacts and sustainable development

Sustainable development calls for business and industrial activity that makes more efficient use of resources and material!, the sustainable development, as defined by the Brutland commission, is development that meets the needs of the present generation, without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own [5]. Its aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Its three objectives are to maintain the integrity of the environment, improving social equity and improving economic efficiency. A production activity designed in such a perspective should aim at integration and balance these three objectives in the planning and decision and include citizen participation. The activity of the company as well as its variants must consider the relationships and interactions between different components of ecosystems and people's needs satisfaction without compromising those of future generations to manage environmental impacted.

the integration of the development and the continuous improvement approach in environmental management system project can ensure the improvement of environmental performance, defined as measurable outcomes environmental management system in relation to the control by the organization's environmental aspects on the basis of its environmental policy, objectives and environmental targets [6]. In fact, the environmental impact is, remember, the effect and its cause is the environmental aspects of the business activity [7].

The Industrial Area Studied: Casablanca-Settat Region

It’s an economic heart of Morocco par excellence, the Casablanca-Settat region inherits the former regions of Greater Casablanca and Chaouia Ouardigha their natural resources and their industrial fabrics respondents with international standards. Update on major industrial structures and promising sectors of interest to investors.

Representing nearly 33% of national GDP, the Casablanca-Settat region focuses an important economic fabric, especially in industry and services. The regional division was also given new potential in the primary sector thanks to the Chaouia-Ouardigha region. But to join the ranks of international economic and financial hub, the region faces several organizational and structural challenges.

The territorial division in 2015 gave birth to a mega-region: Casablanca-Settat. The agglomeration, which spreads over 9,448 km², in two prefectures, Casablanca and Mohammedia, and 7 provinces, namely Benslimane, Berrechid, El Jadida, Mediouna, Nouaceur, Settat and Sidi Bennour. The region is also the most populous of the Kingdom with 6.9 million inhabitants. Today Casablanca-Settat represents 20.3% of the national population with an urbanization rate of 73.6%.

As a bonus, the area has new natural, human, urban and economic that will give it a new breath in achieving its economic and social development. The directorate of studies and financial forecasts, who spent the scanner the potential of each region, came out with the following conclusion: "The Greater Casablanca was reinforced by the provinces of El Jadida and Berrechid, supporting and industrial connotation of the new Casablanca-Settat region.

The latter benefited from the contribution of the primary added value from the above provinces and those of Benslimane and Settat, without questioning its industry leadership. "

The area has all the strengths and diversities to be the locomotive of the national economy. In terms of infrastructure, Casablanca-Settat has a port connectivity that allows it to play the role of catalyst for the entire economy. The area is the first port area of the Kingdom with 69% of the country's trade. The port of Casablanca, which provides nearly 40% of foreign trade of the country, funneled no less than 20 million tonnes of goods per year. The ports of Mohammedia and Jorf Lasfar, the first specialized in hydrocarbons and the second having a mining vocation, serve as relays.

And that's not all: the National Ports Agency plans to strengthen the port infrastructure of the kingdom: the total planned investment in the ports of the region for the period 2016-2020 amounts to about 3 billion dirhams. Added to this are other means of transportation and connections (Mohammed V airport, roads and highways, railways ...) which ensure a flow of traffic and goods transport. The new division is also expected to strengthen economic and industrial vocation of the area. The Casablanca-Mohammedia axis is known for its industrial dynamism composed of giants operating in different areas (cement, sugar refining, power generation, steel, food), not counting the SME which is getting stronger.

The province of El Jadida is also set to take off in the current configuration. The industrial area of Jorf Lasfar already home to large industrial gauges: OCP, Morocco Taqa, Sonasid, Winxo ... All these factors should enable the region to take its cruising speed and strengthen its economic weight, now estimated at nearly 25% of national GDP with 40% of the country's commercial activity and 60% of its industrial activity.

These advantages make Casablanca-Settat a destination of choice for investors. However, the mega-region has challenges to his measure. The chief town of the region, Grand Casablanca, suffers from major shortcomings that blacken the table. In a report by "Casa, Place of life," a group of the think tank created by Khalid Safir, Wali of the region, several shortcomings were pointed. Housing shortage, poor waste management, lack of green spaces ... Clearly, the regional council and the province have bread on the board. Business climate side, traders and governments agree that there are still several obstacles to be overcome. The regional committee of the business environment (CREA-Casa), created in early 2015, is also involved in this process. In its action plan, it established 13 axes. Improved installation business conditions accelerated the upgrading of industrial zones, simplifying local taxation, paperless trade authorizations, integration of the informal sector ... several actions are underway. Beyond the city, the region will be required to harmonize all its components. The Casablanca-Mohammedia axis is poised to have saturated. El Jadida and Settat can be a real safety valve.

For example, Jorf Lasfar has become the first global platform of phosphates and derivatives and will gain momentum in the coming years thanks to investments by the OCP. Settat, rather oriented chemical and metallurgical industries, is not far behind. In addition, the region, hitherto exclusively specialized in the activities of the secondary and tertiary sectors, the region is suitable, with new cutting an important added value of primary industry, from Chaouia-Ouardigha agricultural specificity. We must therefore realize this potential and build a growth driver.

Methodology and Tools

During the first quarter of 2016, we conducted a questionnaire survey about the environmental impact in industrial area studied: Casablanca-Settat region.

The questionnaire results are counted in the following matrix, where we assign the value (1) to affirmative answers and (0) for negative responses, and the value (N) to invalid responses, or lack of response or aberrant response.

We reduce the size of the data matrix by grouping variables in homogeneous classes, respecting the weight of each environmental variable; we obtain 19 classes of environmental variables (Table 1).

Table 1: Data matrix, giving the values of the classes.

The «SARL companies» are “les Sociétés à Responsabilités Limités (limited liability Companies)”: Are generally the small and medium enterprises.

The « SA companies » are “les Sociétés Anonymes “limited companies)”: Are generally the large companies.

We observe a notable lack of data which requires the introduction of a recovery method to complete the matrix before treatment. There are several methods. Yet, we prefer the method of KOHONEN we explain in the next section.

Methods of data recovery missing KOHONEN

Representation of information given by clustering method is of little satisfaction. Some tools able to localize classes into the input space are expected in order to provide a good visual support to the analysis of classification results; the KOHONEN algorithm has the originality to organize classes considering the neighborhood structure between them [8].

The processing of data with missing observations is a concrete and always embarrassing problem when it comes to actual data (Marie Cottrell).

Indeed, in our study, we are in the presence of observations for which we do not have all the descriptive variable values, and this happens for many reasons: entry errors, not filled sections, outliers that preferred delete, or abstention to inform data discreetly measure.

To prevent and remove the data, you can replace a missing value by the average of the corresponding variable, but this average can be a very poor approximation if the variable has a high dispersion.

It is very interesting in this context to note that the KOHONEN algorithm perfectly supports the presence of missing data without needing to estimate beforehand.

This can be found in the thesis of Smaïl Ibbou (1998) a chapter on the issue. We assume that the observations are real-valued vectors of dimension p.

When exhibit incomplete data vector x is first determined all Mx Numbers of the missing components. Mx is a subset of {1, 2…, p}.

If (C1, C2, ..., Cn) is the set of code-vectors at this time, is calculated code-vector gagnant C_j (x) associated with x and class, by putting (C, x)=arg mini d(x, C_i)

Ord (x, C_i)² = ?k∉Mx (xk – C_{i, k})². We then estimate the data xk parxˆk = C_{j, k}.

Whatever the method used to recover the data with missing values, one of the most interesting properties of the algorithm is that it is possible to estimate missing values retrospectively (Smail Ibbou, 1998).

If multiple vectors are winners, we take their average value.

Analysis main components

After application of the method of KOHONEN, we get the below Table 2.

Table 2: Matrix data after recovery of missing data by KOHONEN method.

According to the correlation circle ( Figure 2), we deduce that the majority of classes are located right and especially in the vicinity of the first main axis. In fact, 57% of classes are condensed, which is a strong correlation between these classes. Classes 5,9 and 13 are underrepresented, and this explains their low impact on other classes. However, Class 10 is isolated.

The extraction data matrix after recovery of missing data on the software KOHONEN method has allows us to have the following graphic presentation:

The results of PCA ( Figure 3), we see that the first dial (positive abscissa and the negative ordinate) contains all limited companies and few limited companies, as they have a strong system of following the environmental impacts, the SA are mainly equipped in the control and the management of environmental impacts, giving the company a visibility and clarity in terms of expenditure and gain. Most SARL is located in the dial negative ordinates, which explains the large shortfall because of the lack of a quality strategy. There is also a scattering of SARL which explains the absence of a standardized policy and also the poor competitiveness.

Environmental Practices of the Industrial Companies of Casablanca-Settat Region

Environmental practices are at the forefront of research for three reasons: First, without conserving our resources, our ecosystem as well as our economy will decline and collapse; second, many environmental practices are measurable and therefore have a tangibility that most social practices do not; Third, regulatory pressure focuses on Environmental regulations [9].

In our scientific research, we studied the perception of industrial enterprise about the management of environmental impacts towards to standards ISO 14001 v 2015: the case of the industrial companies of Casablanca-Settat region MOROCCO, this perception based essentially on the good practices to ensure the continuous improvement and the development of the environmental management system of the companies of the industrial park Casablanca-Settat ( Figure 4):

a) Reducing fuel consumption by:

• Achieve savings in heating

• Reduce its lighting consumption

b) The water consumption in industrial area of Casablanca-Settat region

In industrial area of Casablanca-Settat region, industrial water consumption decreased from 0.41 m³/tone in 2011 to 0.17 m3/tone in 2013, well below the regulatory threshold of 0.15 m³/tone, the best tools and the good actions to streamline the using of water in this industrial park are ( Figure 5):

• Conservation Plans.

• Use devices more efficient Technology.

c) Water consumption reduction

• Changing the decalcification process with zero discharge of brackish water.

• Changes in water circuit and optimization of recycling.

• Increased processing daily factory.

• Use devices more efficient technology.

d) Environmental management risk

The overall aim for organizations in managing risks is to ensure that they are built into the fabric of corporate decision making. In dealing with environmental risks an important issue then arises [10].

Manage such business daily demands and requires constant monitoring effort and overall including the legal, economic, competitive, industry, depending on the activity of the company ... These are risks that the company is required to master, predict and manage to ensure the survival of your structure. However, there are certain risks that few entrepreneurs take into account, often placing them at the bottom of their list of priorities. These environmental risks.

The companies in the industrial park in the region of Casablanca-Settat shall by environmental hazards, all risks that the mere exercise of the activity may result, producing a direct or indirect impact on the business environment.

Nevertheless, it is surprising to see how the concept of environmental risk is low and/or poorly integrated into the professional culture of entrepreneurship Moroccan. The regulations, regarding risk management, is either ignored or obscured and the daily management of companies do not consider the importance of its effect on the human and natural environment.

Yet, as an entrepreneur, the liability of the company is highly likely to be involved, which requires you to keep you informed of these risks, their nature, and the best way to predict and/or control.

ISO 31000: 2009 provides a clear and official definition of the concept of risk to the environment, designating as the possibility of an event occurring and the consequences (or effects of uncertainty) would likely affect people, the company's assets, its environment, the company's objectives or reputation.

By this definition, we can identify a wide range of risks to the environment of a company. However, it is possible to distinguish three categories at this level:

• Internal risks: these are the industrial and/or technological risks generated by the company and have an effect on its environment (natural elements-water, air, earth-, sites and soils, noise ...).

• External risks: these risks external damage, from the nature and/or environment impacting the company (flood, landslide, storm, wind, drought ...).

• Risks arising from independent origins of the company or of its natural environment (example dam failure, incident impacting a nearby hazardous activity ...).

Conclusion

The environmental impact of the human being does not stop, it is a fact Natural. Therefore, the human factor must understand and manage the impact. The new version of the ISO 14001 standard 2015 version meets the environmental challenges facing our planet, helping organizations reduce their environmental impact and understand the effect of the environment on their activities.

ISO 14001: 2015 for environmental management has met with great success in the industrial world. This is a great step forward for essential environmental standard which covers, in a single text, all environmental issues (water, air, soil, waste, biodiversity, ecosystem services, climate challenges, etc.), and enables organizations to manage a global approach.

The industrial area of Casablanca - Settat faces environmental challenges and constraints, contribute, each in its extent to the protection of the planet is not a mere declaration of intent: it is now a strategic business imperative.

Eventually this standard has evolved, but from a technical point of view, the real changes take primarily to the increased emphasis on sustainable development. Do not just wish to prevent pollution, but to preserve the environment from harm and degradation

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