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There is a distressing lack of awareness among South African companies about their impact on the environment. A survey conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) at the beginning of the year on the state of environmental training in companies revealed that although many large South African companies had adopted environmental policies, the majority (81%) still believed that they had little or no adverse impact on the environment. "For environmental training to be effective, companies need to be clear about their environmental impact", says Mrs Leona Craffert, senior research specialist at the HSRC. To assess current environmental training in South African companies, the HSRC researched 116 companies with 200 or more employees in the Gauteng, the Greater Cape Town and the Greater Durban metropolitan areas. The target group consisted of companies in the primary sector (agriculture, mining, fishing and quarrying); the secondary sector (manufacturing, construction and electricity generation) and the tertiary sector (wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants, transport and accommodation). "Environmental training is a crucial factor in the success or failure of environmental management practices in South Africa. Through this project the HSRC wishes to generate research information that can contribute to the advancement of environmental training in South African companies and to decision making on such training", Mrs Craffert said. The survey found that more companies in the primary sector had environmental policies (89%) than companies in the secondary (53%) and tertiary (46%) sectors. Primary sector companies were also more inclined (78%) to monitor their impact on the environment than were secondary (63%) and tertiary sector (51%) companies. It was noted that 20% of the companies that had an environmental policy did not monitor the environmental impacts of their products and processes. Companies in the Gauteng metropolitan area were more inclined to provide environmental training (68%) than those in the Cape Town (53%) and Durban (33%) metropolitan areas. "It is significant that only half of the respondents were convinced of the benefits of environmental training and of the fact that it can contribute towards cost saving and risk reduction", Mrs Craffert said. She added that 37% of the respondents felt that environmental training merely added to the already heavy training responsibility of companies. The survey indicated that 10% of the companies allocated no specific number of hours to environmental training, 31% dealt with such training as and when the need arose, and 18% allocated no time to environmental training at all. It was noted with concern that none of the surveyed companies considered the development of public participation skills as a priority. Companies have not yet realised the financial benefits and savings that can be derived from having appropriately trained personnel to monitor environmental indicators to save on over-consumption, to reduce waste and to optimise production levels, the report stated.
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