Environmental

Poor environmental practice carries the risk of fines if businesses fail to comply with the growing list of regulations, but perhaps more importantly, they run the risk of becoming uncompetitive if they fail to control performance in key areas - for example waste, which, according to the government sponsored agency Envirowise, is costing industry £3 billion annually. Regulations are getting tougher as governments and consumers become increasingly concerned about issues such as:

  • Global warming and ozone depletion
  • Air and water pollution
  • Resource depletion

Multiple Responsibilities

A typical organisation may conduct activities requiring them to meet a multiplicity of regulations. For example on:

  • Disposal of Waste
  • Use of refrigerants
  • Responsibility for Packaging
  • Use and disposal of water
  • Contamination of land.

New Targets

Further compliance targets will develop, with electrical and electronic products, the latest target for legislation. Any firms making, selling or distributing them must now comply with the EU's tough Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, making them responsible for financing the collection, treatment, recovery and disposal of these products.

Cost savings

Envirowise estimates that British industry uses three times more water than necessary and the average office worker wastes 1,584 A4 sheets of paper per month. The agency believes that improved practices could save firms £1,000 per employee per year.

Your organisation may be becoming concerned about the environmental impact of its activities, products and services, and the rising costs associated with issues such as waste management and energy conservation. This concern is reflected in the amount of increasingly stringent legislation related to environmental protection.

Many organisations not only wish to achieve compliance with environmental legislation, but they want to demonstrate sound environmental performance. As a consequence they will implement an environmental management system to help control its impacts and meet their requirements of relevant legislation.

The two main standards for environmental management are ISO 14001 (Environmental Management Systems) and EMAS (Eco-management and Auditing Scheme). ISO 14001 and EMAS are standards related to environmental management systems. Accreditation to one of these standards shows that a company has an effective environmental management system. This is useful as it will inherently help regulatory issues to be addressed and will satisfy the interests of many parties.

For instance, many companies will demand accreditation as a way of demonstrating environmental performance and will only use suppliers who have attained these levels. The standards also have an in-built requirement to demonstrate continual improvement and so this keeps business moving forwards in environmental terms.

Our ISO 14001 environmental management service will help you to develop systems and procedures in line with the ISO 14001:2004 standard and maintain compliance with your environmental management system.

This service includes:

  • Preliminary reviews
  • Gap analysis
  • Aspects and impacts assessments
  • Environmental awareness training
  • Working alongside you environmental team to establish and develop systems and procedures in line with the standard
  • ISO 14001 audit
  • Ongoing support of the system to ensure continual improvement and compliance