What is ISO 14001?

ISO 14001 is the principal management system standard which specifies the requirements for the formulation and maintenance of an EMS. This helps to control your environmental aspects, reduce impacts and ensure legal compliance.

Evaluation of Environmental Aspects

Environmental aspects are the activities that result in an impact on the environment. As every business consumes materials, uses energy and generates waste in operating the business environmental impacts will occur as a result.

Examples of environmental aspects include the following:

• Use of utilities such as water, electricity, gas etc.
• Generation of waste
• Air emissions, smoke and fumes
• Disposal of effluents
• Management of activities with the potential to cause pollution such as bulk oil storage tanks.

Once you have identified these environmental aspects, you’ll need to determine the impact they could have on the environment and, using a “risk” scoring system, identify the aspects that are the most significant.

The scoring system isn’t prescribed by the standard; as long as it is adequate to the task, it can be as simple or complex as you desire. There are a number of methods you could employ that can help to identify the likelihood of an event (failure) happening and the potential impact if it does. Therefore, a high-risk impact event that is likely to occur would receive a high score, indicating that it is a concern for the business, whereas a low-risk impact event that is unlikely to occur would receive a low score.

Benefits of ISO 14001

• Cost savings in waste, recycling and consumption
• Advantage over competitors when tendering for business
• Management of environmental risks
• Compliance with individual countries environmental regulations
• Demonstrates your commitment to improving the environment
• Shows you are a responsible future focused organisation
• Can reduce insurance cover costs
• Can increase employee engagement in the knowledge that they are working in an environmentally friendly organisation