The pathway to prominence and recognition of the Australian Golfing Industry as the world leader in environmental management through EMS is presented. The Australian Golfing Industry’s EMS initiative has revolutionised golf course environmental management across the globe by implementing an innovative EMS strategy in consultation with the industry. ISO 14001 has been transformed into a simulated golf game and incorporated into a web based platform to improve EMS delivery and understanding. “Build it and they will come,” has been the dominant historical approach to EMS development and implementation but there is a need to provide incentives for them to stay with EMS. Golf’s EMS initiative fostered a strong sense of efficacy to provide EMS users with high assurance in their capabilities. EMS users of the golf EMS platform could approach difficult EMS tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided.

Innovative deployment and support mechanisms, an industry specific EMS configuration, scale and manageability resulted in an EMS initiative that could connect everyone to an on-line EMS. Golf recognised it had significant environmental challenges and through EMS it has seized the opportunity to create the industry’s pathway to sustainability.