Planning of an EMS implementation based on ISO 14001
This domain tests clause 6: aspects and impacts, compliance obligations, risks and opportunities, environmental objectives, and planning actions. The exam often asks how significance is determined and how objectives connect to significant aspects.
Core rules
- Identify aspects for activities, products, and services under normal, abnormal, and emergency conditions, with a life cycle perspective.
- Determine significance using documented criteria, such as severity, likelihood, regulatory exposure, and stakeholder concern. Criteria need not be purely numeric.
- Determine compliance obligations: legal requirements and other requirements the organization adopts, and how they apply.
- Identify risks and opportunities related to aspects, compliance obligations, and context issues.
- Set environmental objectives that are consistent with policy, measurable where practicable, monitored, communicated, and updated.
- Plan actions: what will be done, resources, responsible person, timeframe, and how results will be evaluated.
Worked example
A printer compares solvent use and paper waste. Solvent has high severity and regulatory exposure; paper waste has high volume but low severity. Using criteria, solvent handling is significant; paper waste is not, but still gets an objective for reduction. The solvent objective is “reduce solvent purchases by 10% by December,” with a closed-loop parts washer, owner, budget, and monthly metric. This links significance to objectives and actions.
Traps
Scoring significance only by likelihood; ignoring emergency conditions; treating the legal register as the whole compliance picture; setting objectives with no measurable indicator or action plan; and using a risk register as a substitute for aspect identification.