The project plan should clearly show the step-by-step activities that have to be undertaken to implement the EMS, i.e. produce environmental policy, undertake environmental review of site. Steps to Implementing an EMS at the end of this section, lists the activities in the order in which they should be undertaken. The roles and responsibilities of the personnel who will be involved in implementing the EMS should also be defined.

The duration of the implementation depends on the size, complexity and activities of the organisation. If the organisation is aiming for certification to an environmental standard, completion criteria will be conformity to that standard.

The following article is part of an article written by Terry Dowson, an Environmental Affairs Manager at a medium sized engineering company in the North West of England. It gives one man's views and experiences of planning the implementation of an EMS. Terry makes a particularly valuable point - you don't have to be environmentally perfect to get ISO 14001/EMAS.

Environmental Management System Development Where to Start Once a decision has been made to progress towards a formal and systematic approach to managing environmental issues, then the logical place to start is at the beginning. The planning stage is crucial if any degree of success is to be achieved, and time spent preparing a sound foundation, will be rewarded at all subsequent stages of the implementation process. The company infrastructure should be examined to try and identify areas of weakness; appreciate some of the cultural hardspots, which could make planning organizational changes difficult, or at least more so perhaps than initially anticipated. The end result will have a much greater chance of success if it is complimentary to existing business practices; to contemplate major changes will almost certainly lead to failure. Ideally, the EMS should interface smoothly with the current set-up, and create the least amount of inconvenience to the organization and its people. A strategic implementation plan should be produced, which outlines the resources required to develop the EMS, and this would almost certainly involve a gap analysis, and should clearly indicate how the system will be supported in terms of human, financial and technical resources. At this stage it is worth exploding one myth at least, specifically, that companies should not be discouraged simply because they believe that they would be disadvantaged, perhaps due to the hazardous nature of their particular business. A company does not have to solve all its environmental problems in order to get certification to ISO 14001. Recognition of its major problems, and the introduction of management controls to reduce the significance of any environmental impacts, is what an accreditation body background="/envENVMAN5/course/images/back/back.jpg is looking for initially, followed by a progressive plan of further improvements to reasonable and practicable levels.