Environmental Management System explained

In the simplest terms, a management system is a description of how an organization conducts its business, or some aspect of the business. All organizations have them, whether they realize it or not. For instance, the accounts payable, receivable, and payroll departments are typically run through systematic means. Organizations use a management system because it is fundamentally “smarter” to deal with challenges in a proactive, organized manner versus the all-too-common scenario of lurching from crisis to crisis.

The Management System Cycle
Credit for graphic: US EPA

An EMS is basically the application of business/management tools to address environmental affairs. The most commonly used such system in the United States is described in the international standard ISO-14001-2004..

However, whether an organization chooses to use the ISO model or not, a functioning environmental management system should include the key elements summarized below.

Policy

For any functioning management system, it is essential that top management state in writing their commitment to improving environmental performance. This commitment, often in the form of a written policy statement, must be communicated and, most importantly, implemented. The environmental policy statement should include commitments to compliance with relevant laws and regulations, to preventing pollution, and to continual improvement.

Analysis of Environmental Aspects and Impacts

An effective EMS requires that you assess all the aspects of your business operations, products, and services that interact with the environment outside the building, and the environmental impacts associated with those aspects. You must determine which of these business aspects generate significant impacts, and you should keep the list up-to-date.

Address Legal and Other Requirements

You need to positively identify the legal/regulatory requirements that apply to your organization. You need to establish a way to stay up-to-date on these requirements. Included with this are any other requirements that may apply to your organization, such as corporate commitments, compliance with international standards, or contractual requirements you may have.

Establish Goals and Objectives

An environmental management system requires that you consider your significant environmental impacts, the views of stakeholders most important to your organization, and your legal issues, and to decide what you can work on over the short term. Make a quantifiable plan for achieving them, with reasonable schedules, and adequate resources. Once you do achieve them, begin the cycle again with new projects.

Assign Responsibilities

Communicating clear expectations and accountabilities to those most responsible for environmental impacts in your organization is essential and should not be left to chance.

Assure Training and Competence

Everyone in the organization must be aware of what your environmental policy is and what your environmental goals and objectives are. The individuals directly involved with your significant environmental impacts need specific training to properly manage these impacts.

Communications

Communication within your organization and with stakeholders outside the organization has to be done in a systematic and effective way. People have to know who to contact when. Back-up plans need to be in place for the inevitable circumstance that a key person is not on station at a given time.

Documentation and Records

It is important to write down what you are doing. You need to have the means to ensure that everyone has the most up-to-date documents and is following the most current procedures. Any operation leading to significant environmental impacts must have documented procedures describing how to properly conduct the operation. Records must be kept in a secure and retrievable fashion.

Emergency Preparedness

Is it important to create and maintain procedures to identify and respond to potential emergencies and responses. Test these procedures often (e.g., fire drills).

Monitoring and Measurement

It is said that “what gets measured, gets managed.” As such, you need to continuously monitor the operations associated with your significant environmental impacts. Tracking if you are reaching your documented goals and objectives, or “objectives and targets” as described in the ISO standards, is critical. You need to evaluate your compliance with laws and regulations, keep monitoring equipment calibrated and maintain written records of all of these activities.

Corrective and Preventative Action

Things do not always go as planned. You need processes in place to handle such situations. When things do go awry, it is important for you to understand what went wrong and to figure out the root cause of the problem. The purpose of doing so is to correct the problem and to identify ways to prevent it happening again. A natural follow-up activity would be to revise and update relevant procedures and policies accordingly.

Audits

While the term “audit” may invoke fear in some as a “gotcha” exercise, it is used here in the positive sense to mean check. You need to periodically check your EMS to ensure that you are effectively doing what you said you would do and documenting this appropriately. Negative audit findings, or “areas for improvement,” are evaluated and fed through the corrective/preventative action process. Note: Audits by external parties, such as for ISO 14001 registration, are another matter and are discussed further under the Registration Section.

Management review

Top management has to review the system periodically and make adjustments as needed. At a minimum, the management review should include reviews of audit results and progress toward achieving goals. This is also a good time to reassess which of your environmental impacts should be considered significant.

If this list looks like a good way to run any aspect of your business – it is. Remember, an EMS is the application of good management to your environmental concerns.