These two articles will discuss issues related to environmental management systems in practice.  Your task is to read the assigned readings carefully.  Then you will write a short reflection (450 words maximum) on the readings.  In your reflection, you will summarise the key ideas/issues/opportunities the readings discussed.

You will then briefly discuss how these ideas/issues/opportunities may affect the adoption/planning/implementation of your EMS  project

EMS project is to develop an Environmental Management System for an Australian olive oil mill/industry following the ISO 14001 standards. You are NOT asked to write a research paper about the olive oil industry in Australia but you will develop an EMS for a model mill.  Another way, to approach this is to develop an EMS framework for the olive oil industry in Australia.

                                                          SAMPLE SOLUTION

Environment management systems seek to develop effective mitigation strategies which work to reduce the effects of various projects to the environment such as pollution.  The study conducted by Rinaldi, Barbanera, and Lascaro focused on identifying the project’s processes with the largest environmental effects in the province of Perugia, Italy. According to the authors, distribution is the main impacting process principally due to the choice of selecting air transport. The article also suggests that olive orchard fertilization is another main hot spot which effects the environment. The authors suggested many improvement opportunities including employment of bio diesel in farming machinery, the usage of cooling agents with low global warming potentials, introduction of lighter bottles in bottling processes, and shifts in the extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) transport policies (Rinaldi, Barbanera & Lascaro, 2014 pg. 72). The article shows that the increase of greenhouse gas emission alters the global atmospheric composition and also impacts climate stability. The food sector, especially food production has been identified as one of the leading contributors to climate change. According to findings of the article, processing, fertilizer manufacture, waste disposal, household food management, and transport contribute nineteen to twenty-nine percent of the total GHG emissions. On the other hand, agricultural activities contribute eighty to eighty-six percent of the global emissions whereas the remaining emissions come from production, primarily fertilizer manufacture. According to the article, extra virgin olive oil is the greatest olive quality grade as well as one of the most vital traditional products in the Mediterranean basin. The life cycle assessment is the most efficient instrument used in assessing environmental effects regarding the GHG emissions.

In the subsequent article, Valta et al., (2016 pg. 914), state that olive oil is globally characterized by an incessant upward trend which peaked during the previous decade. The main objective of the study is the evaluation and recording of the current practices applied in the treatment of solid waste and wastewater derived from the processing of olive oil in Greece. The process is targeted to help uncover the opportunities for value addition to the process of olive oil via alternative wastewater and waste treatment practices as well as the valorization of waste streams. The authors contend that there still exists room for major improvement in waste water treatment, particularly in Greece. This is because the presently used method that is, the removal of oils, neutralization, sedimentation as well as open lagoon evaporation, encompasses only basic levels of the treatment technique. However, regarding the solid waste management, attention has to be paid to the usage of sludge, which is produced from the evaporation pond. Concerning solid waste valorization, the authors suggest that Greece must thoroughly exploit pomace handling. The authors winded up by stating that the use of materials such as solvents as low-cost adsorbents to remove different pollutants such as dyes, pharmaceuticals from wastewater and water is effective and constitute a reduction of cost for waste disposal. It is worth to note that these issues contribute a lot to adoption, planning, implementation of the EMS project. The articles provide several different alternatives which can be used in reducing environmental pollution. They also provide several mitigation strategies which can be applied by the production industries to eliminate environmental pollution.