ISO 14001 Environmental. Management Systems
Iso 14001 - Please contact us to see how we can assist you with your Environmental Management System Requirements
The Standard requires an organisation to
a) establish an appropriate environmental policy,
b) identify the environmental aspects arising from the organizations past, existing or planned activities, products and services, in order to determine the environmental impacts of significance,
c) identify applicable legal requirements and other requirements to which the organization subscribes,
d) identify priorities and set appropriate environmental objectives and targets,
e) establish a structure and a programme(s) to implement the policy and achieve objectives and meet targets,
1) facilitate planning, control, monitoring, preventive and corrective actions, auditing and review activities to ensure both that the policy is complied with and that
the environmental management system remains appropriate, and
g) be capable of adapting to changing circumstances.
The Basics of an Environmental Management System
There are many ways oF undertaking an assessment, but activities may include the Following
Establish the scope of assessment, this will include the physical boundaries
A description of the business activities Falling under the EMS.
Map out physical boundaries oF your EMS include environmental considerations such as
A drainage plan (both surface and foul drains), Chemical/ oil storage points, location of waste skips, chimney stacks from boilers or process lines, car parks, wind direction, local neighbours, areas of frequent pollution/spills etc, previous uses of the site, potential contaminated land.
This list is not exhaustive, just an indication of what could be included.
We can offer Fully Accredited ISO 14001 EMS Certification, please call us to discuss your needs more fully.
Site Mapping
If your business activities do not lend themselves to be marked easily on a site map, try to establish your baseline by identifying the flow of business activities and then mark on the same diagram their associated environmentally related
Controls & Influences
Iso 14001 asks you to identify not only business processes that you can control, but also those you can have
These might not always be immediately apparent.
This can best be done in a number of ways, including group brainstorming, process mapping, and input/output
Using the outputs from the above exercise, identify any changes to the environment that your organization causes
Use a common sense approach — once again, brainstorming is an effective method of tackling this section.
Don’t forget to use the outputs from the mapping approach or process flow diagram.
If you are aware of any applicable environmental legal requirements, make a note of them in a draft legal register “. Such obligations may include licences, discharge consents etc..
A detailed identification and analysis of compliance can be covered later in your EMS implementation project System Reviews
Finally, your assessment should include a review of existing management practices. For example, you may already have a system for identifying and recording your training, using risk identification techniques within your qualWy management (QM) or occupational health and safety (OHAS) system.
If these techniques are effective, build them into your EMS.
