Environmental and Sustainability Considerations
What this domain tests
This domain tests whether you can connect OSH practice with environmental aspects and impacts. An aspect is an activity, product or service that interacts with the environment; an impact is the resulting change, such as pollution, resource depletion or waste. ISO 14001 provides a management-system model; legal controls include permits, waste rules and pollution legislation.
Core rules
- Identify environmental aspects and impacts, including normal, abnormal and emergency conditions.
- Maintain a legal register covering air, water, waste, chemicals and permits.
- Apply the waste hierarchy: prevent, reuse, recycle, recover, then dispose.
- Control spills and emissions through containment, ventilation, treatment and emergency arrangements.
- Use licensed carriers and documented disposal for hazardous waste; monitor energy, water and waste data.
Worked example
A workshop uses solvent-based parts washing and sends dirty solvent to general refuse. The reasoned response is to substitute a water-based cleaner, segregate solvent waste, store it in labelled closed containers, use a licensed hazardous-waste carrier and keep manifests. The reasoning is that waste disposal is not only a housekeeping issue; it is a legal and environmental control with OSH exposure implications.
Traps
Making “green” claims without evidence; sending hazardous waste to ordinary refuse; ignoring permit conditions; omitting environmental incidents from incident reporting; treating sustainability as only energy saving.