Kan en standard för miljökommunikation förbättra miljöprestanda?
Ett examensarbete i samarbete med NQA Nordic AB
Mankind has always been communicating, it is almost impossible to not communicate. The communication tree has grown a new branch, the environmental communication branch, and an ISO standard, the ISO 14 063 Environmental communication- guidelines and examples was issued October 2006. The purpose of this thesis is commissioned by the managing director of NQA Nordic AB in order to examine and analyse how organisations communicate environmental issues today, and how big the need for ISO 14 063 actually is, and further more if there are needs and wishes to make ISO 14 063 a certifiable standard. The main conclusion is that the there is a need for the standard, but it is difficult to say in which form since the knowledge about the standard is far to low among the organisations examined in this thesis. Clarity and transparency as ISO 14 063 promotes are important ingredients in organisations? environmental work, so sure a standard for environmental communication can help improve environmental performance, for example through opening up for two-way communication and from that on take part of the stakeholders? opinions.This study is based on a literature study and a questionnaire survey where 70 organisations (in this case authorities, corporations and non-governmental organisations) randomly chosen from the seven criteria, which ISO 14 001 defines as the environment: land, water, air, flora, fauna, natural resources and man and his collaboration with those. The chosen organisations all have a connection to the environment, directly or indirectly. The authorities are chosen from Sweden?s 16 environmental objectives. To get an extra perspective an interview was made. The results from the questionnaire survey show that there is a big dispersal among the questioned organisations. Some trends are distinguishable. When it comes to communication in common it is often the information manager who communicates, when it comes to environmental subjects it is as often the environmental manager who communicates. The fora which are used for environmental communication are traditional, for example brochures and homepages. Only 6 out of 29 respondents knew about ISO 14 063, compared to 23 out of 29 that knew about ISO 14 001. The results from the questionnaire have been analysed from three perspectives; in total, comparing the different types of organisations and the seven different environmental areas. Authorities have the highest respondent frequency and it seems like they have implemented the environmental best into their tasks. The natural resources organisations among with the water organisations are those best at communicating environmental issues, the humanitarian organisations is in last place. Drawing a conclusion from that, it is easier to take in environmental issues and work with environmental communication the closer to the issue you are. Only one questionnaire answer came from the fauna group, which makes the fauna group difficult to compare with. In general the larger organisations? answers follow the ISO 14 063 better that the small and medium-sized ones, among many said no thank you to answering the questionnaire because they couldn?t see the connection to their own activity. So the thought about ISO 14 063 also suiting small and medium-sized organisations well does not work in reality Summing up it has been interesting study to do, even though it has been difficult due to the fact that there is little literature about environmental communication.2008:Nr 4 Teknik