ISO 14001 and EMAS Requirements

The requirements of a formal EMS imposed by both standards are that all environmental effects identified must be considered in the review, not only those deemed significant such as those covered by legislation. ISO14001 certification requires that there must be some evidence within the company's documentation that environmental effects have been given consideration. EMAS requires the EMS to have a well maintained register of Environmental Effects. Thus, the most effective means by which a company can address the issue of recording and assessing effects is through the maintenance of a Register of Environmental Effects, for both formal and informal EMS'.

Any effective EMS will seek to fully manage and minimise, thus improve its significant environmental effects. For a company to evaluate its environmental effects will mean that objectives can be set for their improvement. Within this, actions can be devised and targets set to meet these objectives. Such a relationship between the significant environmental effects and the objectives and targets set should be clearly demonstrable within a company's EMS, particularly one which is seeking verification or certification.

Which effects should be considered?

The environmental effects identified at the post review stage need to be tabulated as a register of Environmental Effects. Environmental effects to be included within the register are:

  • Emissions to atmosphere (controlled and uncontrolled)
  • Discharges to water (controlled and uncontrolled)
  • Solid and remaining liquid wastes
  • Contaminated land from leakages, spills and processes: historical and current
  • Consumption of natural resources
  • Noise
  • Human health impacts
  • Impacts upon flora and fauna

Which effects require improvement?

Prioritising actions

Once the aspects of the company that have an environmental effect have been ascertained, it is necessary to assess which of these are significant. This will enable the company to prioritise which area should be focused upon. There are no concrete rules as to how an environmental effect is to be considered as significant. Whether the EMS is informal, or for the purposes of verification/certification, deciding upon which effect is significant should be a logical process. This will ensure that the EMS meets with the requirements of the standards. Thus, at accreditation/verification stage if the EMS has not identified a certain effect as significant and this is still the case when the criteria/evaluation for significance procedure within the documentation is applied, then the system will pass. It is recommended that the environmental management steering committee should agree on devising a suitable procedure for this and also for compiling the register itself.

During the preliminary phases of devising the Register of Environmental Effects the steering committee should meet regularly ( weekly or fortnightly) in order to sustain the interest in completing the Register. Following this, meetings can be less frequent. The meetings should be formally minuted and actions given to a wide range of personnel and circulated to a wide range of personnel in order to ensure that all effects will be vetted by a variety of employees to ensure that all effects have been accounted for. Figure 3 below gives a model screening procedure for environmental effects.

Although there are no formal guidelines to assess significance of environmental effects, some commonly applied rules are given below:

An effect is often deemed significant if it:

  • Is governed by legislation and regulatory requirements such as discharge consents and process authorisations
  • Is likely to give rise to measurable and observable effects upon the natural environment (both adverse and beneficial)
  • Is of concern to external parties such as investors, insurers, customers, local residents, regulators/enforcement authorities and environmental pressure groups.
  • Is incurring large financial costs to the company.

Control over environmental effects

The environmental effect identified by the company will always vary in the level of control that the company has over them due to the fact that some will be direct and others will be indirect. The EMS must take account of all indirect effects and understand their significance, regardless of whether they are able to have any control over them, otherwise this will reveal itself as a non-compliance.

Sources of help in identifying environmental effects

It is not likely in the majority of company's that knowledge regarding detailed information on potential environmental effects will exist internally.

A company may wish to enrol the services of external environmental consultants throughout the entire process of implementing their EMS, or in particular stages.