Corporative environmental management system (EMS) in the natural capital rational use and national transition to sustainable economy (the case of Thailand)

. Currently, environmental management standards’ incorporation in many countries is a national socio-economic progress priority, is considered as a factor ensuring not only the national welfare growth, but also a guarantee of high standards of the quality of life. Based on the results of a survey of 612 representatives of large and medium-sized businesses in the Kingdom of Thailand, this paper highlights the main delusions that limit the prospects for country’s business community accelerated modernization, as well as motives that have the potential of their own application in the strategy of the widespread implementation of EMS in business practice; the main principles and tools of the national strategy for stimulating the greening of the Thai companies activities in the interrelation of the dominants of business efficiency growth and ensuring the strategic security of the state and society are also given.


Introduction
The concept of sustainable economic development, adopted by the world community more than 30 years ago, implies a combination of economic growth and environmental conservation.Even environmental aspects of economic activity are regulated by both national institutions and international organizations, administrative influence without economic methods in its basic is not effective.
Nowadays, the implementation of the environmental management system (EMS) at Thai enterprises lags far behind world practice.
In Thailand the environmental management system is implemented mostly by companies operating in the world market in order to obtain a certificates required by importers.Corporative environmental activities are regulated by the state mainly using the administrative form.Despite the constant tightening of the legislation, the quality of the natural environment practically does not change.
Thai business entities have no interest in EMS implementing because management does not see the benefits of this system (except reducing payments for environmental pollution).One of the reasons hindering the introduction of environmental management at industrial enterprises in Thailand is the lack of generally accepted methodology for assessing the economic results of EMS implementation.
The purpose of this study is based on analyzing the Thai companies' attitude to EMS implementation to identify important delusions of understanding its economical, marketing, financial consequences which limit the prospects and seriously decrease opportunities of national green economy development.
The application of the results of this study makes it possible to identify prior directions for effective introduction of EMS principles in strategic and current management procedures in Thai business due to the clarifying relationships between business profitability and managers readiness to daily realize advanced green practices.

Literature review
The external environment includes elements, conditions and factors that directly or indirectly affect the functioning and economic activity of the enterprise, as well as its competitiveness [1].Traditionally factors of external environment of the enterprise is divided for: direct (suppliers, consumers; intermediaries; competitors; contact audiences; government agencies; society) and indirect (natural factors; ecological; demographical; socio-cultural; scientific and technical; economical; international, political and so on) once [2].
For the successful operation in a competitive market, an enterprise must fulfill all the requirements of the external environment.State bodies and environmental organizations, as well as the public, are tightening requirements for the consumption of natural resources (for example, energy, water, etc.), as well as for environmental pollution.Banks, insurance companies and investors are more willing to work with companies that have implemented an environmental management system.
The tightening of the requirements of the external environment stimulates the management of the enterprise to implement environmental programs, but its implementation requires internal motivation of the management and personnel [3].The external motivation for the management of enterprise is an increase of opportunities to enter international markets, improve corporative image, etc [4].
Under the influence of the actions of international organizations, educational work with the population, a new attitude to the consumer value of the goods is being formed.Until recently, the price was the prerogative of product evaluation; today the consumer makes other demands on the product [5].
Despite the difference in definitions, researchers [6][7][8] agree on the following: value takes into account a set of competitive benefits, and is measured in money.Such types of benefits as functional, economic, service are understandable and measurable.However, environmental benefits are hardly considered.Some researchers [9] include social benefits associated with the safety of disposal and environmental safety in the consumer value of a product.
Sociological surveys of the population show that environmental safety is becoming an important component of public consciousness.At the same time, there is a big gap between the understanding of environmental issues and the perception of environmentally friendly technologies and products as a consumer benefit [10].
It can be seen from the studies that in the minds of consumers, the environmental friendliness of products is not directly identified with consumer value.Today, the consumer has become more environmentally literate and, when choosing a product, looks at characteristics such as energy intensity, water intensity, the health impact of the product when using it, etc.The consumer is willing to pay more for such a product, while the priorities of environmental benefits vary greatly depending on the general economic situation [1,2,11].According to Porter model, the value chain starts from the raw material and ends with the consumer, including the value chains of suppliers, enterprises, distributors.Requirements for environmental safety are present at all stages of the product life cycle and are evaluated not only by the consumer, but also by the intermediate manufacturers.
This situation pushes businesses to seek for new activities to make their products more environmentally friendly, which brings the product closer to the value that the consumer claims [9,12].
The value of the goods enables the company to increase profitability.An increase in value is possible due to environmental performance [13,14].
Enterprises that implement environmental management and position their product as environmentally friendly should take into account the obtained ratios when developing a pricing policy and evaluating the results of environmental measures implementing.
Many authors [15,16] do not only interpret the concept of environmental management in different ways, but also consider the effect of the introduction of environmental management one-sidedly, mainly in terms of methods for calculating the effect of environmental management.
Traditionally, there are three main types of effects from environmental activities: social, environmental and economical.
According to [17][18][19], social efficiency is the cost of preventing loss of net production due to employees sickness, reducing the cost of treatment of the population due to environmental pollution, medicines subsidizing, reducing the incidence of the population, improving working and rest conditions, etc.
Social efficiency is an additional indicator of economic efficiency and serves to determine the aggregate cost indicators necessary to maintain the quality of the natural environment.
In our opinion, we believe that the head of the enterprise is not interested in this effect, because, by investing in the project, the head expects a quick payback period and profit [6].As mentioned above, investments in the social sphere are most often not expressed in cash, and therefore there is no interest in these investments.
The second type of effect is ecological.Researchers [20,21] consider the ecological effect as a result of reducing the anthropogenic impact on the environment, improving the quality of the natural environment, which is necessary for human life.
The environmental effect can be expressed by the following indicators, such as: damage intensity, land intensity, resource efficiency, resource intensity, energy intensity, emissions and discharges into the environment, useful life, the possibility of reuse after the expiration date.The environmental impact can be positive or negative [4].
The economic effect is an absolute indicator that shows the economic result of the introduction of intensive technologies, organizational and economic measures, etc.
The economic result is aimed at achieving the external and internal goals of the enterprise, which are closely related.The external goal is the volume of sales; the internal goal is the increase in profits.The relationship of goals is seen through the conquest of new market segments, holding positions in the developed markets [5].
Economic efficiency is the ratio of the result to the resources expended.Production indicators include: labor productivity, capital productivity, profitability, profit, payback period, etc.With their help, various options for the development of production can be compared.
In general, it is very difficult to single out environmental and economic efficiency separately, since all environmental effects are reflected in the economy.

Methodology
The study was conducted in 2021 in Thailand by sending out a questionnaire (by e-mail) in English and Thai languages, as well as an invitation to take an online survey (using a Google form), the statistical indicators of the surveys conducted are presented in Table 1,2 below.
The contact details of the enterprises were taken from databases of BOI Thailand, Thailand Ministry of Commerce.

Results
Firstly the personal data on responders (their job, professional connections, degree of engagement in different business actions) was analyzed (Figure 1).The highest proportion of respondents with a master's or higher degree was found in organizations from the provinces of Chiang Rai, Chachoengsao, Nakhon Nayok, Rayong.
The largest share of top managers among the respondents was in the provinces of Samut Prakan, Khon Kaen and Rayong.There were also no business owners or co-owners among the respondents in Kamphaeng Phet, Lopburi and Bangkok provinces.
Most of the surveyed employees (226 people) have been working at the enterprise for more than 10 years, but slightly fewer (200 people) have been working in the company for less than 1 year.Most of the employees with work experience of 5 years or more (from 75%) are represented in the companies from Saraburi, Chanthaburi, Nakhon Ratchasima, Chumphon, Chachoengsao provinces.
Most of the respondents (268 people) have heard about the EMS system, only 136 know and apply this approach in practice.
Most of the respondents (279 people) hear about the environmental management system for the first time, a minority (52 people) knows it very well and actively participates in the process of EMS standards implementing.The enterprises in the provinces of Samut Prakan, Phetchaburi, Chiang Rai, Chonburi, Nakhon Nayok are most aware of and apply the EMS standards.
The majority of respondents (239 people) are confident in the negative impact of their enterprise on the environment, while 168 respondents are confident in the neutrality of their production.
Most of all, business representatives from the provinces of Phuket, Pathum Thani, Khon Kaen, Phetchaburi, Nakhon Ratchasima are sure of the negative impact of their production on the environment.
It can be noted that in a minority of irrigated companies (27), EMS is completely absent in the strategic development guidelines.160 surveyed companies occupy the central place in the operating activities of EMS (which is significantly higher than the number of companies that have noted EMS as the central link in their development strategy).
The vast majority of respondents are confident that their products are generally not dangerous for the environment (438 respondents), only 29 surveyed companies are confident in the negative impact of their products on nature.
It is interesting to note that the provinces of Lamphun, Chumphon, Nonthaburi, Bangkok, Nakhon Pathom are the most geographically confident in the environmental neutrality or low negative impact of their products on the environment.And vice versa, most representatives who are confident in the negative impact of their product on the environment are companies from the provinces of Saraburi, Phetchaburi, Chonburi, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya.Most of the interviewed respondents are sure that environmental payments have little impact on the financial performance of their company.
The majority of respondents (204) believe that the volume of sales of their products depends on their environmental friendliness, although their share in the total number does not exceed 35%.Approximately the same number of respondents is sure that the volume of sales of manufactured products does not depend or rather does not depend on its environmental friendliness.
Most of the surveyed enterprises use or rather use the environmental factor in corporate marketing (218 and 116 respectively), which indirectly confirms its importance as a factor in the economic success of companies.
The majority of enterprises are not ready, or rather not ready to pay more for the purchase of more environmentally friendly raw materials (102 and 275 respectively), although almost a quarter of the surveyed companies are ready to do this (151).
The vast majority of companies surveyed believe that consumers value the environmental friendliness of their products (246), while a minority believes that this is a secondary or unimportant factor in choosing their products (61).
The majority of respondents believe that Thai consumers are willing to overpay no more than 10% (185) or 10-20% (187) of the finished products price for their environmental friendliness.
Further a series of questions about ISO 14001 were asked to be evaluated by the responders.
For the most part, companies from the provinces of Chonburi, Chanthaburi, Nonthaburi, Chiang Rai use ISO 14001 standards in their daily production activities.In the provinces of Khon Kaen, Phitsanulok, Pathum Thani, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, on the contrary, a large proportion of companies do not apply ISO 14001 standards in their daily production activities.
Most companies believe that the use of ISO 14001 improves the company's image (230) and increases its competitiveness (163).
Only 77 respondents consider the application of ISO 14001 standards effective, 243ineffective, most of the respondents found it difficult to answer.The greatest pessimism in the application of ISO 14001 standards is a characteristic of enterprises from the provinces of Nakhon Sawan, Pathum Thani, Chiang Rai, Nonthaburi, Rayong.The greatest optimism is in Saraburi, Nakhon Ratchasima, Rayong, Khon Kaen.
The vast majority of respondents associate the use of ISO 14001 standards with the growth of corporate competitiveness in the future (although they are skeptical about their real effectiveness).
The majority of respondents are sure that the application of ISO 14001 standards makes it easier for companies to enter the international market (314 respondents).
The fifth and final part of collected information is on the environmental management system of the business unit and its efficiency.
The majority of respondents believe that their company can spend no more than 5% of profit on the EMS implementation (288 people).The companies from the richest and most economically developed provinces as Rayong, Bangkok, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Khon Kaen are the least generous in EMS implementing.
The majority of respondents (344) believe that 10% of the staff will be enough to form a corporate EMS; 268 companies currently do not view the EMS as understandable, clear and transparent.Enterprises from Nakhon Nayok, Saraburi, Nonthaburi, Rayong, Lopburi demonstrate the greatest problems with modern EMS understanding.
The majority of respondents agreed with the need to introduce EMS everywhere in Thailand (290 people).The most categorical in this opinion are business representatives from Phitsanulok, Lamphun, Samut Prakan, Chanthaburi, Bangkok.The most doubtful are representatives of the provinces of Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, Chachoengsao, Nonthaburi, Kamphaeng Phet.

Conclusions
The results of the correlation of answers to the questions of section 2 and section 3 are shown in Table 3.The following conclusions can be done: Enterprises which financial results do not depend on the organization's participation in environmental activities: -do not note that the volume of sales of their products depends on the environmental friendliness of their products; -do not use the factor of environmental friendliness of products in corporate marketing; -are not ready to pay more for the purchase of more environmentally friendly raw materials; -however, widely believe that consumers will appreciate the environmental friendliness of their products and even be willing to pay 10-20% more for their environmental friendliness.
Companies that the financial results of activities do not significantly depend on the company's participation in environmental activities: -are not ready to pay more for the purchase of more environmentally friendly raw materials; -rather use the environmental friendliness factor of products in corporate marketing.
Companies which financial results are highly dependent on the participation of the corporation in environmental activities: -believe that the level of sales does not depend on the environmental friendliness of their products; -are more willing to pay more for the purchase of more environmentally friendly raw materials.
The results of the correlation of answers to the questions of section 2 and section 4 are shown in Table 4. Enterprises whose financial results do not depend on the organization's participation in environmental activities: -consider that the application of ISO 14001 standards is generally effective, but do not apply them in everyday production activities due to inappropriateness in a particular organization, the inability to achieve certain competitive advantages in case of application (It can be identifies as Delusion 1: Infantilism).
-we are sure that the application of ISO 14001 standards allows the organization to more effectively enter the world markets (Delusion 2: Priority of international markets).
Companies that the financial results of activities do not significantly depend on the company's participation in environmental activities: -apply ISO 14001 standards in the process of selecting suppliers and partners; -consider the use of ISO 14001 standards profitable, confident that the use of ISO 14001 standards allows achieving competitive advantages in the long term.
Companies whose financial results are highly dependent on the participation of the corporation in environmental activities: -however, do not consider that, from the point of view of the state of the environment, the application of ISO 14001 standards is effective (Delusion 3: Nihilism).
-do not see that the application of ISO 14001 standards allow the organization to achieve competitive advantages in the long term (Delusions 4: Short time planning) The results of the correlation of answers to the section 2 and section 5 questions can be seen in Table 5. Enterprises whose financial results do not depend on the organization's participation in environmental activities: -believe that the introduction of an environmental management system in the future is cheaper than possible marketing or image losses (It can be called as Motivation 1: Inevitability of reforms).
-consider it necessary to introduce an environmental management system in Thailand everywhere (Motivation 2: Leveling the <field of game=).
-do not believe that the environmental management system as a whole is clear, transparent and understandable to any user in your organization (Motivation 3: Needs for practicalization).
-do not believe that the introduction of an environmental management system will allow it to cut environmental payments (Delusion 5: low economical efficiency).
-are ready to pay no more than 5% of the profit for the introduction of an environmental management system (Motivation 4: cut costs for reformation or modernization).
Companies that the financial results of activities do not significantly depend on the company's participation in environmental activities: -do not believe that a widespread introduction of an environmental management system in Thailand is necessary (Delusion 6: Distrust or Motivation 5: Willing to maintain the current competitive advantages); -consider it necessary to involve 10-20% of the staff in the EMS process; -believe that the environmental management system as a whole is clear, transparent and understandable to any user in your organization; -believe that the introduction of an environmental management system will save on environmental payments (Delusion 6: Lack of practical knowledge).
Companies whose financial results are highly dependent on the participation of the corporation in environmental activities: -not sure that the introduction of an environmental management system in the future is cheaper than possible marketing or image losses (Motivation 6: Active use of own experience); -do not believe that the introduction of an environmental management system will save on environmental payments (Motivation 7: Own negative experience).

Recommendations
Based on delusions and main motives of Thai business in corporate environmental management systems implementation identified in the study, it is possible to determine the main directions and principles of industry modernization, on the one hand, aimed at delusions eliminating, and on the other hand, based on the main motives of management and company owners.
First of all, we consider it expedient to introduce a national classification of EMS depending on the level of its standards and practices integration into corporate processes for strategic and operational management decisions making, the impact of EMS standards on corporate financial reporting, the share of personnel involved in the implementation of the company's environmental management strategy, and so on.
Depending on company utensils to a certain level of EMS (at the initial stage, it is possible to introduce a three-level classification), tools and measures for its state support and (or) regulation should be determined, for example, a system for determining payments for resources use, environmental taxes, excises, VAT on manufactured products and local taxes, kinds of the enterprise participation in preferential programs of state promotion (for example, within the framework of the National brand <T: made in Thailand=, national and regional promotions such as <Travel together=, <Invest in Thailand=, '50-50= and so on).
We also consider it possible to implement a national program for additional identification and positioning of brands and (or) products of companies that meet the levels of compliance with EMS standards (as options -light green, green, dark green logos, or one, two, three green leaves, and so on).
This measure will allow, on the one hand, to eliminate business's nihilism, distrust and confidence in the low efficiency of the implementation of the environmental management system, on the other hand, it will be supported by the motivation of companies to increase their own competitive advantages.At the same time, it is necessary to clearly state the environmental management system, its unambiguous definition and standardization, including such areas of strategic and operational corporate management as suppliers and partners choice, technologies of production, packaging, transportation, storage, processing and disposal of products, labor organization standards, corporate social responsibility.We consider it possible to create an open platform for discussing the problems of EMS incorporation at enterprises of various fields of activity and industries (for example, under the auspices of ministries, professional associations, unions, with the involvement of specialized higher education institutions, foreign practitioners and environmental management theorists).This platform (both online and offline) should become an important component of brainstorming, a resource for the development of national measures to stimulate the EMS implementation, work on the principle of transparency, dialogue between business, government and society, and its work, especially active participants (first of all, business representatives) should become public, widely covered in the media.
The formation of the EMS legal infrastructure in Thailand will eliminate the entrepreneurs' delusions due to the lack of practical knowledge and skills, and can be supported by motives of entrepreneurs who have own, both positive and negative experience in EMS incorporating.
The necessity of EMS widespread implementation is recognized by the majority of surveyed representatives, which indicates the expediency of EMS including in the national strategy for socio-economic modernization (along with digitalization, for example).The relevant ministries must necessarily include indicators of companies' certification, depending on their compliance with environmental management standards, in the methodology for determining their own effectiveness (including in the process of budgetary funds distributing).This recommendation is aimed primarily at overcoming the problems of shortterm corporate planning in the field of greening.
At the same time, it is worthwhile to carry out information support for export-oriented companies that comply with advanced EM standards, to highlight their experience in order to disseminate it to companies that are more dependent on domestic demand, to focus on that the Thais deserve not only high-quality products, but also living conditions that ensure both the growth of consumption and a secure existence.
The implementation of these measures, on the one hand, should take into account the interests and motivation of business, but on the other hand, should not lead to an increase in prices for essential products and services of natural monopolies, which requires the state to be flexible in the application of fiscal instruments (reducing excise taxes or VAT on products, optimization of environmental payments, public loans for dark green companies, for example, in comparison with non-certified ones, should compensate the growth of corporate costs for EMS implementation).
Although this will cause a certain budget revenues reduction, at the same time, the expenditures of budgets of all levels for solving environmental problems will decrease in the future.
Also, as a problem in the national greening strategy implementation we can consider the growth of competition with products from other countries (primarily from ASEAN), in which EMS are not implemented enough or are ignored at all.We consider it necessary to extend the requirements for environmental friendliness not only to imported products (with the exception of unique import items that have no Thai counterparts), but also to their manufacturers following the example of the countries of the European Union, as well as to intensify the Kingdom's external efforts to unify EM standards within ASEAN.
At the same time, it is worth noting two main principles for the implementation of the national strategy for corporate EMS dissemination.
At the initial stage, the zone of state incentives should be limited to large businesses, including those integrated into transnational production and distribution systems.Small and medium enterprises in Thailand (as a leading employer) should independently decide on the need to incorporate EM standards in the future, after this model successful implementation in the segment of large enterprises.In any case, SMEs are actively associated with large players (for example, within supply chains or value creation), which makes it possible to predict the spread of EM practices by large businesses into segments of small and mediumsized businesses in the future.
The second condition for the national strategy of EMS implementation should be the categorical refusal of the authorities and society to discriminate against activities that are of great socio-economic importance, but are (due to technological reasons) the largest environmental polluters or intensive consumers of the country's non-renewable natural resources.The management greening strategy should not turn into <ecological schizophrenia=, promoting, for example, the complete rejection of the fertilizers use in agriculture or traditional fuels, especially in conditions of the modern economy turbulence, extremely negative experiments of radical green governments, for example, in Sri Lanka or in certain countries of Europe.
The EMS implementation strategy should be based, first of all, on the motivation of business and the desire of consumers, and not on the voluntarism of officials, the will of representatives of international organizations or TNCs, to be implemented systematically, in stages, promptly responding to any deterioration in the economic condition of the country.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Education and job position of respondents (compiled by the author).

Table 1 .
General statistics of the survey (compiled by the author).

Table 2 .
Geography of the survey (compiled by the author).

Table 3 .
Correlation of answers to the questions of section 2 and section 3 (only variables which correlation exceeds 0.75 are shown) (Author's calculation).

Table 4 .
Correlation of answers to the questions of section 2 and section 4 (only variables which correlation exceeds 0.75 are shown) (Author's calculation).

Table 5 .
Correlation of answers to the section 2 and section 5 questions (only variables which correlation exceeds 0.75 are shown) (Author's calculation).