Fundamental principles and concepts of an environmental management system
What an EMS is
An environmental management system (EMS) is the part of an organization's management system used to manage environmental aspects, fulfil compliance obligations, and address risks and opportunities. ISO 14001:2015 does not prescribe environmental performance levels; it prescribes a systematic process for improving performance.
The PDCA backbone
Plan: context (Clause 4), leadership and policy (5), planning (6). Do: support (7) and operation (8). Check: performance evaluation (9). Act: improvement (10).
Concepts to master
- Context: external and internal issues, including environmental conditions.
- Interested parties and their relevant needs and expectations.
- Environmental aspect: an element of activities, products or services that interacts or can interact with the environment. Impact: a change to the environment, adverse or beneficial, wholly or partly resulting from those aspects.
- Significant aspects: determined using criteria the organization itself establishes.
- Compliance obligations: legal requirements plus other requirements the organization commits to.
- Risks and opportunities, including environmental conditions affecting the organization.
- Life cycle perspective: from raw material to end-of-life, but not a full LCA.
- Continual improvement of the EMS to enhance environmental performance.
Traps
Aspect versus impact is the most common confusion. Significance criteria are not prescribed. 'Preventive action' is no longer a separate clause; risk-based thinking replaced it. Protection of the environment explicitly includes sustainable resource use, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and protection of biodiversity. Compliance obligations include voluntary commitments. There is no required 'environmental management representative'.
Rule of thumb
Build the chain: activity → aspect → impact. A printer using solvent inks: activity = printing; aspect = VOC emissions; impact = air pollution and smog formation. Significance might consider quantity, toxicity, frequency, legal limits and interested-party concern.