Eco‐mapping as a basis for environmental management systems integration at small and medium enterprises Available to Purchase

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to show that environmental management integration to a small Estonian enterprise which main activities are freightage services and vehicles' maintenance and repair works, implementing a visual, simple and practical tool – Eco‐mapping. Design/methodology/approach – The paper shows that Eco‐mapping is a practical, visual and easy‐to‐use toolbox, which gets employees, involved in good environmental practice. It is the first step towards integrating environmental considerations into the day‐to‐day activities of small SMEs. Eco‐mapping is a step‐by‐step process to gather useful information and to immediately trigger environmental action. In total, 80 percent of environmental information is location‐based. There are ten basic steps, which identify environmental aspects, significance of the problems, environmental targets and an action programme of the considered field. Findings – The findings in this paper show the implementation steps of Eco‐mapping tool into the small Estonian company. During the case study all hazardous impacts on human health and environment have been evaluated and the workers awareness was raised. Practical implications – The paper shows that after the overall analysis the company has received clear picture of the problem areas. The most worrying was connected to material storage handling that might had heavy influence to environment as well as to health and safety in particular leakages, risk of explosion, health hazard, emissions. The preventive measures that can be easily taken may decrease these risks in many times. They are the following: fire system integration; electrical system approval; correct utilization of hazardous wastes; and legal issue studying. Originality/value – The paper presents the practical example of implementation of the Eco‐mapping tool in one small Estonian company. This paper gives an overview of the implementation process, describes the main concerns and suggests possible solutions. The project helps managers and other workers to understand that careful relation to the environment might be favorable from an economic point of view, as compliance with regulation and preparing sustainable principles for future generations.