title: Performance of newly implemented Environmental Management Systems in primary schools in South Africa.
abstract: Quantitative results from Environmental Management Systems (EMS) at primary schools have rarely been examined in literature. This paper presents the monitoring results of environmental care in 39 primary schools in Northern South Africa. During 2 years, after the EMS was implemented in the curriculum and in the school's management, the progress of environmental performances of the participating schools has been measured, by means of detailed questionnaires, related to four environmental aspects: water, waste, energy and greening. At the beginning of the project, 50% of the schools performed well on water-related environmental actions. Two years later it was 76%. For waste-related activities the improvement was even stronger: from 50% to 100%. The environmental performances of the schools improved also for greening-related actions, from 50% at the start of the project to 64% two years later. Only energy-related activities did not improve significantly with only 24% of all schools performing well at the end of the survey period. In general, the introduction of an EMS succeeded in an improvement of the overall environmental performances of the schools, but cost-intensive activities were less successful than others.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Ecology, University of Brussels, Laarbeeklaan 103, 1090 Brussels, Belgium. human.ecology@vub.ac.be
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hens
authors.forename: Torsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wiedemann
authors.forename: Schalk
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Raath
authors.forename: Riana
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stone
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Renders
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Craenhals
mesh_terms: D003246:Conservation of Energy Resources; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004780:Environment, Controlled; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D008283:Maintenance; D012574:Schools; D013019:South Africa; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D018505:Waste Management; D014867:Water / Q000592:standards*
chemical_list: D014867:Water