For people working to catalyse change in urban water management, organisational management systems are an important resource. The possibilities include:

• using headline documents (e.g. within a local Council, the Council Management Plan and State of the Environment Reports) to legitimise changes in policy direction,
• using operational plans (e.g. Business Plans, project plans) to formalise specific commitments, and
• using checking and correction mechanisms (e.g. regular meetings, informal reviews, audits, ecological monitoring) to hold individuals and groups accountable to their explicit commitments.

When you are working in, or influencing, a large or medium-sized organisation.

Practical considerations include:

• Is the organisational management system taken seriously by management and staff?
  • Sometimes they are more symbolic - for instance when they have been imposed by an external authority and are not owned internally. But even then their symbolic support is useful: changing what we say we ought to do often assists substantive change.
  • You may find that formal systems are taken seriously in some parts of your organisation and not in others. If you have senior management support, strengthening them may be helpful. If you don't, their contribution to negotiations with staff who do value them is obviously much greater.
• How well developed is the organisational management system? Does it embody an accurate, even an astute, grasp of what the organisation is actually doing?
  • If its grasp of ecosystem management is weak (which is often the case in organisations with wide-ranging social, economic and ecological objectives, like local governments), sharpening its focus on the ecological aspects of the organisation's activities and ecological outcomes can be very helpful.
  • If its grasp is strong, it can be a powerful operational tool.
• Have you opportunities to influence the organisational management system positively?

Kinds of management system

How management systems should be used depends on the situation you are in.

The possibilities include:

1. working with existing management systems (e.g. in a NSW Council, working with the way Management Planning, as required by the Local Government Act, 1993, is implemented);
2. developing a specialist environmental management system; and
3. developing an integrated occupational health and safety, quality and environmental management system.

Considerations to bear in mind in NSW Councils are:

• what systems your Council already has working: it is a lot less effort to leverage what is already in place than to build something new,
• which form(s) of management system have senior management and line management support,
• the legitimacy that the Local Government Act confers on a commitment made in a Council Management Plan, and
• whether introducing a new kind of system (e.g. a specialist environmental management system) provides an opportunity for wholesale cultural change.

Management system design

The design of formal management systems - including environmental management systems - has been an area of intense work for a number of decades. Visit Standards Australia for copies of current Australian and International standards. Relevant standards include:

• AS 9001: Quality Management Systems
• AS 14001: Environmental Management Systems
• AS 4581: Management System Integration
• AS 4360: Risk Management.

Online guidance for management system design includes:

1. The Model Stormwater Management System provided here. It includes a template for the design of an organisational stormwater management system that is based on the ISO 14001 model for an environmental management system.
2. The European Union (EU) approach to environmental management systems
   • Eco-Management and Audit Scheme in local authorities
   • Eco-Management and Audit Scheme: Toolkit for small organisations
     The principles, approaches and tools described have application to larger organisations as well.
   • How to establish an environmental management system
3. An ISO 14001 Guidance Manual from the (US) National Center for Environmental Decsion-making Research. This site includes a directory to further ISO 14001 related online resources.
4. A suite of EMS in Government Design Tools (Waste Reduction Resource Centre, US)
5. Environmental Management Systems (US EPA)
   • EMS Integration Project
     • " Identify and document the successful use of EMS and other utility management tools in the United States and other countries that can be useful components of a comprehensive EMS.
     • Identify barriers to integrating these programs and tools into a utility-wide EMS.
     • Identify methods (such as delivery mechanisms) that would facilitate the integration of these programs and tools into a utility-wide EMS.
     • Identify incentives that would motivate utilities currently implementing worthwhile programs and tools to integrate them into an overall EMS.
     • Develop recommendations and guidance on the development and implementation of comprehensive EMS by public water and wastewater utilities incorporating all of the above."
6. Environmental Management Systems: an implementation guide for small and medium-sized organizations

Case studies

• Implementing ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems at the Municipal Level
  
• ISO 14001 Case Studies: beyond rhetoric to reality
  
• EMS in Government Case Studies (US)
  
• Local Government EMS Initiatives (US EPA - Office of Water)
  
• Public utility EMS case studies (US EPA)
  
• Environmental Management Systems and ISO 14001 Federal Facilities Council Report (USA) (e-book)
  
• RMC – Benchmarking globally, auditing locally: The BiE Index as a change management tool
  "Employing over 29,000 staff worldwide and with annual turnover of some £4.8 billion, RMC is the world’s largest supplier of ready mixed concrete, Europe’s largest aggregates producer and the world’s 10th largest global cement producer. As an example of its commitment to building practical action on sustainable development, the Group was one of the driving forces behind the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) run under the auspices of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). The CSI was showcased at the World Summit on Sustainable Development and was granted Type 2 status by the UN because of its unique contribution to sustainable development in the global business community."

An organisation is people relating to each other, in networks, with a division of labour. Alignment within organisations is always imperfect. Individuals' and groups' interests are commonly resonant in some respects and dissonant in others. Management of larger organisations is an imperfect art - more a matter of influence than control.

In this context, formal management systems play a significant role. They are a means of focusing attention and energy on specified actions and outcomes.

From an organisational change perspective, management systems are a basic tool to use in reshaping an organisation's 'way of doing business' to improve its management of urban water.

• Standards Australia
  source for AS 14001 / ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Standard in Australia
  
• Environmental Management System Online Library
  
• Directory of International Best Practice in EMSs (US EPA)
  
• Draft Position Paper on Environmental Management Systems in the Water Services Industry (Institution of Engineers, Australia)
  
• Guidelines and Ideas to Develop a Local Agenda 21 Program
  
• Local Government Environmental Assistance Network Toolbox (US)
  
• Why involving people is important: the forgotten part of environmental information system management
  "A process for utilising the principles of collaborative learning for developing integrated information systems to support decision making is discussed. Particular attention is paid to the new skills of relationship building, facilitation, and conflict management required by multidisciplinary teams developing such systems."