LLDA shuts down 3 restos for pollution | Manila Standard Today

LLDA shuts down 3 restos for pollution | Manila Standard Today

I never thought that I would hear this kind of news again. It was for this reason that I started this blog around three years ago. Three years ago,  I was part of the LLDA Technical Working Group (TWG) for the development of effluent standards for the industry.

The point of the TWG was to develop specific effluent standards applicable to the quick serve restaurant.  I am not sure if such standards were really developed. BOD of 1000 mg/L has been common among QSR and other restaurant establishment, but the point is efforts within the facilities must be implemented or any means of pollution prevention must be integrated in the system prior to final discharge.  The QSR group is lobbying for raising the lowering the effluent standard from 50 mg/L BOD to 500 mg/L BOD. Since it is more than three years and I have no communication with the people involved in the TWG, I am not sure what progress has been made.

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ANSI Approves Green Seal for Restaurants

ANSI Approves Green Seal for Restaurants
Posted On September 9, 2009 (8:48 am)
Restaurants seeking to be "green" have another measure of confidence...
Article taken from Environmental Leader - http://www.environmentalleader.com
URL to article: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/09/09/ansi-approves-green-seal-for-restaurants/


For the industry, this seems to be good news! However, are fast foods included in this standard? Fine Dining and Quick-Serve Restaurants have different operating capacities, once, I even heard people in our industry wanting the QSR to have a separate industry classification.  I am so glad to hear that GS-46 follows the specs and guidelines of ISO14024 which follows specifies a comprehensive framework to operations on how to reduce their environmental impacts.

Maybe I'm just disillusioned about my job because most of my superiors don't like dealing with comprehensive frameworks specified by international science-based standards and would rather make their own "egotistical" frameworks. In my studies, I have learned that the environment is not chaotic and we can always find order like in food chains and the order leads to interconnections.

For more information please see Green Seal, Inc.

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The Worst We Could Do Is Isolate Ourselves

In most corporate offices, the environmental department is an enigma, not really, more like sidelined given its relative novelty. Unlike accounting, legal, facilities engineering or purchasing, it is only recently that such units are being put into place when things like environmental compliance issues and safety concerns are being addressed given its legal and economic consequences. While working for the fastfood, people from other departments would ask me what is the purpose of an EHS department? Being new at that time, I was surprised that a lot of old timers were not oriented on the purpose of such group.

More surprised, I found out that our group's decision-making process was not directly linked to anyone at the executive level which in my prior industry affiliation was the usual case. This coming from an industry dominated by ISO14001 certifications where top management commitment is and auditable criteria.

I am validating the article I previously posted were only 12% of the surveyed firms in the United States have executive teams directly involved in sustainability programs, I agree that this is the usual norm not only in Corporate America but in emerging economies. Top management often sets up this units or departments not because of its commitment to the environment but to minimize the risks brought about by environmental compliance issues and stakeholder advocacy on a company's productivity.

If your EHS/CSR group is stuck in that situation, the worst you can do is isolate yourselves. By isolating and even stigmatizing such groups, the environmental concern becomes less mainstream within an organization. Having our jobs does not make us special as if we are mystical beings. I have always cautioned that an environmental management program must be rationalized not mysticized, because turning it into a somewhat spiritual  experience does not allow it to have the proper organizational infrastructure it needs to become mainstream where only a few in the organization could understand it and even appreciate your groups existence. It is becoming  more of a fad and not an essential part in the growth of an organization. If you are in a dead-locked situation, where top management does not even recognize the purpose of your presence in the office when they see you, again the worse you can do is try to make an impression.  It would be a lot better to make sure that everyone including your janitor and photocopy guy knows and appreciates what you are doing. By developing the lower ranks of the hierarchy, the change necessary can reach the top, noting from the book Thinking in Systems, the purpose of the hierarchy is to fulfill the needs of those in the bottom.

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Made to Measure: Learning from Quality and Integrating the Lessons to the Environment

When I started working, I once had a problem with working with quality professionals, I don't understand what the hell are they doing, on the other hand quality professionals sometimes don't get me, I guess they don't know what the hell I'm doing. Now that we are at the age of recession and cost-cutting, we have to tighten our belts and reduce excessive energy use (my laptop is on energy-save mode) so accredited ISO certifying bodies and management consultants have advocated the implementation of Integrated Management Systems or people may say IMS.

In my day to day existence in the corporate world, the lowly corporate person will not immediately get this when told, they often need a couple of days of training to understand IMS or a week if they have no background on management systems. Maybe I myself couldn't have known this on my own if I hadn't had some mentorship during my management consulting days but now that I have gained the knowledge and experience...I am frustrated because being young indeed pose a problem and none of my colleagues would like to accept this knowledge that I got from an unlikely mentor who I guess is equally frustrated now-a-days.

Just to note, a former boss was once agreeing with me to implement an EMS in our organization (this is what I previously mentioned in the caveat of my earlier post) but he just could not accept the fact that he is quite lost (he needs a lot of trainings but too stingy to attend even one, relying on taxpayer money to attend free government seminars which leads nowhere) and he could not even accept the fact that I was the expert. Rather than reading the standard, he sets up a number of programs that are incohesive to organizational thrusts.

When implementing management systems we must always realize that organizations have their own agenda, objectives, cultures and motives that are far stronger than our advocacy towards environmental improvement. The key is to gradually align those agenda and motives towards sustainable development and that agenda is defined by who is on top of that organization.

In working with quality professionals, I have learned that their focus is on satisfying the requirement of the customer which is quite straight forward. The key is to know your customer. This on the part of the company enables them to develop their competence to satisfy customer needs. I was once involved in a manufacturing facility where a big sign in the doorway says "Our customers pay for our salary" which is translated that non-attainment of customer requirements jeopardizes a company's profitability.

In implementing Corporate EMS do companies really understand the requirements of the environment? We must control ourselves from implementing environmental programs as if its a mystical experience because there is a tendency to become moralistic and biased. Often corporate entities lobby to create their own effluent or emission standards, which regulatory agencies gladly agree in the midst of discussions, in quality terms we are trying to manipulate our customer requirement.

Before, I thought IMS was a bad thing for environmental professionals because, customer requirements will dominate over environmental compliance. However, I found out that it is a way for companies to make sure that the environment becomes a well-loved and well thought of customer who has its specific requirements.

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Fighting Our Fear of Standards Standards Standard

In 2005, I attended a conference on the possibility of utilizing Fossil Fuels as a "Clean" energy source organized by the Asia Pacific Economic Conference. The conference was an irony but I won't be talking about the conference topics which talked about the geological sequestration of carbon dioxide and coal liquefaction but the time when I personally met a former Energy Minister while lining up at the Buffet Table and chatted him up on the energy prospects of the South East Asian Region. When he moved on to the Halal table, I realized that no matter how complex the environmental laws of the Philippines are, we as a people generally have very low standards about how we utilize our resources and protect the environment. We are more focused on the external and superficial rather than the root cause of the problem especially the leaders.

I was impressed by the simplicity of other environmental laws within the region and the humility of the energy minister that they still do not fully understand the magnitude of the environmental impacts of further fossil fuel exploration in their countries and here we are bragging about our energy exploits which only looked good in the power point presentation but too politicized to be implemented.

While working, my boss insists that the root cause of the non-compliance of fast food firms to the effluent standard is the "incompetence"of those working in the end of pipe but the truth is the root cause of the problem is the lack of commitment of the people on top because they are too comfortable with their positions and the real focus on environmental management is quite misaligned.

Some companies even go to the effort of defining their own standards without general consideration to its impact on the environment. A change on how things are done usually threatens us and we fear it, we generally fear standards because we are too comfortable with the status quo.

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Torn Between Compliance and Commitment

Regulatory agencies expect companies to be committed. More often than not, the usual third world company is just complying to environmental standards because commitment to environmental standards or eventual improvement in environmental performance is not the usual goal to achieve a company's bottom line.

In my experience working with ISO14001 firms, getting certified is a requirement by their customer,  often a multinational company with a Triple Bottomline Agenda which in turn forces the toll manufacturer to comply with domestic environmental regulations since to the cost to lose a certification will amount to losing a contract that a business is wholly dependent on.

What if the customer does not require a certification on the part of their suppliers? The motivation of suppliers to comply to comply with environmental regulations is very minimal since it has no effect on their bottomlines.

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Going further with ISO 14001

The great deal of my professional work experience has been all about the implementation of ISO14001. In 2000, fresh out of college, I was tasked to maintain the documentation requirements of a school's certification based on the specifications of ISO14001:1996, at that time I had the impression that it was a very technical concept but almost a decade in implementing the standard and doing consultancy work on the requirement for multiple industries it was easy as a breeze.

That may have been a biased statement given my years of experience in the field but some people still think that ISO14001 is something that can only be achieved by certified firms or industries. This is a common misconception. We should not look at ISO 14001 as a technical requirement that involves a drastic change in technology or production system but rather we should look at the standard as a systematic framework to gradually achieve changes starting with the organizational structure where people on top of the hierarchy agrees to make a change. The change doesn't have to be specific as long as a commitment is made and a willingness to spearhead the change...once this commitment on top is in place the behavioral and technological change will gradually occur.

Carrying the common misconception, most firms or organizations shun away from implementing the standard and make the common mistake of jumping onto technological innovations without the proper organizational infrastructure that will allow pollution control technologies or environmental programs to become integrated in the production system.

Unlike the other management system standards, EMS based on ISO14001 is the simplest of all and with the revision of ISO9001 for 2008, other management system standards have revised their requirements in alignment for ISO14001 in able to achieve easier integration.

Most fast foods, the really big ones implement a HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) System or Food Safety Management System based on ISO 22000. Given the management system infrastructure being in place, a fast food firm who wishes to implement an EMS can integrate it with HACCP/FSMS. However, another short-coming of other fastfoods is their lack of a formal HACCP system to ensure non-contamination of products within the chain of custody prior to human consumption.

Going back to ISO14001, my point is, we should never fear a standard. It is by raising our standards even in the way we do things that eventually raises our quality of life.

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Fast Food in the Third World

For most of my life in the developing world, fast food has been a luxury item for the rest of the population. For most families in Metro Manila, getting everyone to eat together inside a fast food outlet on a Sunday after mass is oftentimes the only luxury an average family could afford. In lower income communities, this could happen rarely in the course of the year. The opposite is true in the developing world, with a fast-paced life, fast food became a source of convenience and the consumption rate is faster.

This condition is never a reason for fast food companies to become less socially and environmentally responsible once they operate in the context of a third world economy where monitoring of environmental standards is much more lenient. However, the core structure that made a fast food successful is in terms of speed, quality food and low price is the structure that makes it unsustainable since it utilizes so much resources and produces too much wastes within the course of its life cycle.

The current trend in developing countries had been returning to community-based lifestyles where the supply chain is limited among local producers and benefits are reaped by local consumers. In doing so, the impacts of products are not magnified. Community-based fast food had always been the practice in the Third World where street vendors with minimal impacts on the supply chain, using local produce and serving local produce had been in existence for ages. Yes, street vendors do have impacts on the environment and even on public health but the magnitude of its environmental impacts is only a fraction of what is expected from a major fast food chain.

It will be very difficult for fast food companies to let go of the western standard and revert back to the community-based approach to doing business, it has to become a long and steady process and like the American Auto Industry, the fast food is still in its learning stages when it comes to sustainability, lesson as an industry is never to say that you already have a PhD when you are still grappling with the hormonal changes of middle school that's a blatant lie and in terms of environmental efforts you basically call that greenwash.

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Wash VS. Styro

A current concern in the fastfood sector is the massive use of polystyrene packaging. In the UK and most of the developed world, there is already a gradual transition from the use of polystyrene towards more sustainable packaging materials.

When McDonald's reverted back to the use of polystyrene cups for its sweet tea, it received much criticism in for its corporate social responsibility (http://www.sustainableisgood.com/)

In the Philippines, the fast food sector still has a long way to go before it can fully transition towards more sustainable packaging. I am quick to note that I am not advocating the use of paper packaging but rather a packaging system with minimal impacts to the environment in the course of its life cycle. I have decided to write this blog in the context of the Third World since the truth of the matter is economic conditions locally is totally different from the developed world.

One of the challenges of the fast food at the moment is the impact of its transition from polystyrene packaging to reusable melamine wares for dine-in customers. The transition was once hailed by civil society as the first step towards a more sustainable fast food industry, with a number of press releases. I was still in college at that time in UPLB. I remember an email forwarded to me where a civil society group boycotted the offices of McDonald's since it didn't immediately follow suit with its competitor's move to reusable wares.

However, this shift has a catch, it did reduce the volume of polystyrene packaging wastes but for the past five years according to my boss, the waste water quality of the fast food was on a decline and the DENR is now reprimanding the industry for failing to comply to the water quality standards.
Technical solutions have been offered by a number of waste water treatment experts but none so far has been effective or let's say not so economically feasible given the space requirement, initial investment and maintenance cost over time.

Last December 2008, I attended a party of the Polystyrene Packaging Council of the Philippines, those invited where not merely the styro producers but a number of waste recyclers who made it a business to recycle polystyrene products. At that time, the municipality of Los Banos issued an ordinance banning the use of plastics and polystyrene packaging from all its establishments and other local governments are planning to follow suit. The DOST does support the recycling technologies but its environmental impacts should be assessed.

What I have learned is that every policy decision has an impact and my basic training in economics taught me that given this condition, we should optimize our options to come up with the solution with least cost or the least detrimental impact. Ideally, given this type of a scenario, a full Life-Cycle Analysis must be done but being in the Third World, we do not have the capacity in time and money to engage ourselves in this exercise.

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