Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

358 Chapter 13: Environment and Industry Figure 13.22  Evolution and maturing of environmental compliance Reactive: lacks understanding of environmental risks and compliance Awareness and understanding: comprehension of requirements, however unsure how to succeed Basic level compliance: allocated resources to ensure proactive approach to environmental compliance Optimised and resilient: environmental aspects key to all business decisions, part of the culture, embedded systems and going beyond compliance The effective implementation of an environmental management system at a regulated installation creates a platform for operators to consider how they can go beyond the basic requirements of their licence. Beyond compliance ‘Going beyond compliance’ refers to organisations willingly and deliberately searching for ways to exceed their regulatory requirements (Keely et al. , 2020). This can be done by fostering an innovative and communicative culture, analysing working processes and instigating and cultivating new management systems. Within the industrial community, the EPA has noted a movement towards going beyond compliance in recent years, with most sectors reporting examples to the Agency in their respective annual environmental reports. Going beyond compliance demonstrates a maturity in environmental performance and occurs when key drivers and favourable conditions are in place and when a consistent level of compliance with environmental requirements is maintained (Table 13.2). Table 13.2  Internal and external drivers and barriers to environmental performance DRIVERS BARRIERS Internal ■ Financial benefit to the organisation ■ Organisational culture ■ Leadership commitment ■ Individual employee ethics and attitudes ■ Operational risks from a large environmental footprint ■ Lack of available funding ■ Organisational culture (norms, structure, learning and communication) ■ Pressure on staffing and financial resources ■ Lack of knowledge and information ■ Lack of leadership commitment ■ Lack of employee acceptance and participation External ■ National government and EU legislation ■ Risk to organisational reputation ■ Media, NGOs, community groups and wider society ■ Competitors ■ Shareholders, investors and customers ■ Supply chain partners ■ Financial institutions, including insurance providers ■ Intransigent regulations ■ Market demands ■ Consumer behaviour ■ Lack of available funding ■ Lack of shareholder acceptance NGO, non-governmental organisation. Source: Keely et al. , 2020.