Environmental Management
System
Dr. Ah-Lian Kor
Leeds Beckett University
A.Kor@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
Outline
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What is an EMS?
Types of EMS
Benefits of an EMS
EMS Methodology
EMS Tools
Announcement
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140 characters for the BCS Competition.
Vision for green IT 2024
Send to Professor Colin Pattinson
C.Pattinson@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
What is an EMS?
• Definition
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
An Environmental Management System (EMS) is
a set of processes and practices that enable an
organization to reduce its environmental
impacts and increase its operating efficiency.
It is a framework that helps a company achieve
its environmental goals through consistent
control of its operations.
It assesses your business' strengths and
weaknesses, helps you identify and manage
significant environmental impacts, saves you
money by increasing efficiency, ensures you
comply with environmental legislation and
provides benchmarks for improvements.
Elements in an EMS (EPA)
Basic Elements of an EMS:
• Reviewing the company's environmental goals
• Analyzing its environmental impacts and legal requirements
• Setting environmental objectives and targets to reduce
environmental impacts and comply with legal requirements
• Establishing programs to meet these objectives and targets
• Monitoring and measuring progress in achieving the
objectives
• Ensuring employees' environmental awareness and
competence
• Reviewing progress of the EMS and making improvements
Types of EMS
You can prove to customers that you are committed to meeting your
environmental responsibilities by getting your EMS certified, such as
through ISO 14001 (Criteria for EMS standards http://www.iso14000iso14001-environmental-management.com/ ),
BS 8555 (British Standard for EMS
http://ems.iema.net/acorn_scheme/bs8555) ,
Green Dragon (EMS for Wales
http://www.wales.groundwork.org.uk/what-we-do/green-dragonems.aspx ) or
Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS, Europe
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/emas/ )
Costs and Benefits of EMS (EPA)
Potential Costs
Potential Benefits
Internal
Improved environmental performance
Staff (manager) time
Enhanced compliance
Other employee time
Pollution prevention
(Note: Internal labour costs represent
Reduced environmental impact
the bulk of the EMS resources expended Resource conservation due to reduced
by most organizations)
wastage
New customers/markets
External
Branding and marketing
Potential consulting assistance
Increased efficiency/reduced costs
Outside training of personnel
Enhanced employee morale
Enhanced image with public, regulators,
lenders, investors
Employee awareness of environmental
issues and responsibilities
Methodology
Plan, Do, Check, Act model introduced by Shewart and Deming
ISO 14001
Sets objectives and targets -> implementation -> evaluate -> review ->
corrective action
EPA http://www.epa.gov/ems/EMSguide2nded.pdf
Stages
• Stage 1: Commitment and Policy
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Make environment the top organizational priority
Makes a commitment and communicate to the staff
Develop related policies
Integrate environment throughout the entire organization
(product, services, delivery, processes, operations, etc…)
– Organizational culture
• Stage 2: Planning
– Identifies environmental impacts of operations
– Prioritization
– Scoping
– Set overall environmental goal
– Set objectives
– Prepare action plan
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Resources (finance, tools, equipment, manpower, etc…)
Training
Schedule
Action (clearly defined steps to meet the targets)
EPA
http://www.epa.gov/ems/EMSguide2nded.pdf
• Stage 3: Implementation
– Follow through with the action plan
– Project management – monitor and control
progress
– Documentation and reports
– Formative evaluation
– Staff – training, awareness, commitment, and
involvement
• Stage 4: Evaluation
– Evaluate results against set objectives
– Evaluate the processes
• Stage 4: Review
– Review the entire project lifecycle
(policy, planning, implementation, etc…)
– Corrective actions? Best practice
Continuous improvement should be the focus.
Groundwork for EMS by EPA
http://www.epa.gov/ems/EMSguide2nded.pdf
Step 1
• Define Organisation’s Goals for EMS
Step 2
• Secure Top Management Commitment
Step 3
• Select EMS Champion
Step 4
• Build implementation Team
Step 5
• Hold kick off meeting
Step 6
• Conduct preliminary review
Step 7
• Prepare budget and schedule
Step 8
• Secure resources, assistance
Step 9
• Involve employees
Step 10
• Monitor and communicate progress
Environmental Policy
Commitments to Compliance with Legal
Requirements and Pollution Prevention
(The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990)
• Source reduction – pollution should be prevented
or reduced at its source
• Recycling – pollution that cannot be prevented
should be recycled in an environmentally safe
manner whenever feasible
• Treated – pollution that cannot be prevented or
recycled should be treated in an environmentally
safe manner whenever feasible
• Disposal or release into the environment should
be employed only as a last resort and should be
conducted in an environmentally safe manner
Identify Environmental Aspects and
Impacts
Comparing Objectives and Targets Some Examples
Objectives
Targets
Reduce energy usage
• Reduce electricity use by 10% in 2001
• Reduce natural gas use by 15% in 2001
Reduce usage of hazardous chemicals
• Eliminate use of CFCs by 2002
• Reduce use of high-VOC (Volatile organic
compound) paints by 25%
Improve employee awareness of
environmental issues
Improve compliance with wastewater
discharge permit limits
• Hold monthly awareness training courses
• Train 100% of employees by end of year
• Zero permit limit violations by the end
of 2001
Legal and Other Requirements
Summary of Legislations in the EU
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/enviro
nment/index_en.htm
Objectives and Targets
Environment Management program
Environmental management
program should define:
• the responsibilities for
achieving goals (who will do it?)
• the means for achieving goals
(how will they do it?)
• the time frame for achieving
those goals (when?)
Requirements
• Structure and responsibility
• Training awareness and competency
• Communications
Effective communication
Effective communications will help you:
• motivate your workforce;
• ain acceptance for your plans and efforts;
• explain your environmental policy and EMS and
how
• they relate to the overall organizational vision;
• ensure understanding of roles and expectations;
• demonstrate management commitment;
• monitor and evaluate performance; and,
• identify potential system improvements.
EMS Documentation
Types of control
• Document control
• Operations and activities controls
Emergency Preparedness and
response
• What type of emergency and appropriate
responses?
Monitoring and measuring
• What to monitor and measure?
• Why?
Non-conformance and Corrective /
Preventive Action
• problems (including nonconformities) are
identified and investigated;
• root causes are identified;
• corrective and preventive actions are
identified and implemented; and,
• actions are tracked and their effectiveness is
verified.
Records
Evidence that the EMS is working as intended
Types of Records You Might Maintain (Examples):
• legal, regulatory and other code requirements
• results of environmental aspects identification
• reports of progress towards meeting objectives and
• targets
• permits, licenses and other approvals
• job descriptions and performance evaluations
• training records
• EMS audit and regulatory compliance audit reports
• reports of identified nonconformities, corrective action plans and corrective
action tracking data
• hazardous material spill / other incident reports
• communications with customers, suppliers, contractors and other external
parties
• results of management reviews
• sampling and monitoring data
• maintenance records
• equipment calibration records
EMS Auditing
Objective evidence of conformance with EMS requirements for
continual improvement
For your EMS audit program to be effective, you
should:
• develop audit procedures and protocols;
• determine an appropriate audit frequency;
• select and train your auditors; and,
• Maintain audit records.
Management Review
Closing the continual improvement loop
• What type of questions will be asked here?
Management Review: Questions to Ponder
• Did we achieve our objectives and targets? If not, why not? Should we modify our
objectives?
• Is our environmental policy still relevant to what we do?
• Are roles and responsibilities clear, do they make sense and are they
communicated effectively?
• Are we applying resources appropriately?
• Are our procedures clear and adequate? Do we need other controls? Should we
eliminate some of them?
• Are we fixing problems when we find them?
• Are we monitoring our EMS (e.g., via system audits)?
• What do the results of those audits tell us?
• What effects have changes in materials, products, or services had on our EMS and
its effectiveness?
• Do changes in laws or regulations require us to change some of our approaches?
• What other changes are coming in the near term?
• What impacts (if any) will these have on our EMS?
• What stakeholder concerns have been raised since our last review? How are
concerns being addressed?
• Is there a better way? What can we do to improve?
Toolkit
• http://www.epa.gov/ems/EMSguide2nded.pd
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