|
How to Get Started
Congratulations! You have
already taken the first move to enhance environmental
excellence in your company by entering this section.
This indicated your interest in gaining commitment to
improving your environmental performance.
How to Get Started?
After understanding the challenges and the key environmental
issues of your industry, here are the STEPS for your
company to improving your environmental performance:
STEP 1 - Top Management Commitment
Gaining top management commitment is a fundamental
step in the implementation of an Environmental Management
Systems (EMS), as for any other major project. Top management
commitment will be needed to give the project importance
within the organization, as well as for approving any
necessary resources and changes.
STEP 2 - Baseline Assessment
In order to be able to identify what needs to be done
to implement an EMS for your organization, it will first
be necessary to establish the current situation. The
baseline assessment provides a quick and easy to understand
approach for gaining an understanding of the current
level of environmental performance and issues facing
the organization. Click here
for useful tools.
STEP 3 - Developing a Draft Environmental Policy
The environmental policy is a short public declaration
that states your intentions and commitment to improving
your environmental performance, but above all else it
provides the focus for the development and operation
of the EMS.
STEP 4 - Developing Environmental Indicators
"What gets measured can be managed". Measurement,
analysis, assessment, and review of real data, relating
to the environmental performance of your organization,
will help you to operate an effective EMS and achieve
stated aims. In addition to this, the collection and
use of environmental performance data will support environmental
reporting and communication within your organization.
Use of environmental indicators has shown to be effective
in maintaining focus on environmental goals, and driving
continual improvement in environmental performance.
STEP 5 - Developing an Initial EMS Implementation
Plan
Planning activities, responsibilities, timescales,
resource inputs, costs and benefits, relating to the
implementation of an EMS will help you in the effective
management of the implementation process to agreed timescales.
In addition to this it will also provide a structures
outline of the project to assist you in gaining commitment
from top management and at other levels within your
organization.
STEP 6 - EMS Implementation
An extremely crucial part of environmental management
is that your employees know what to do (from an environmental
point of view).For example, what is required by law?
How they can help the organization to improve your environmental
performance or save money? Everyone should be aware
of the project and its aims, as well as possessing the
knowledge and skills to enable everyone to "get
it right first time". The more informed and skilled
your employees are, the higher the chances of the EMS
delivering predicted benefits will be. It will also
enable the employees to get more back from the EMS programme.
Certification with ISO 14001 - Environmental
Management System
ISO 14001 is the international standard for environmental
management systems, developed over 10 years ago and
respected and recognized worldwide. ISO 14001 is based
on the two concepts of continual improvement and regulatory
compliance. The standard provides a clear management
framework based on the well-established management principles
of: Plan-Do-Check-Act. It requires an organization to
assess the operations impact on the environment, understand
how those impacts can be managed, and set clear objectives
and targets to continually improve on environmental
performance. The standard also requires clearly defined
processes and procedures to manage personnel and the
activities that the organization undertakes.
The ISO 14001 standard requires an organization to
clearly understand the environmental legal requirements
that apply to it, and also any other corporate and stakeholder
obligations. These requirements then need to be managed
by the organization, and their compliance must be checked
regularly.
The generic standard is applicable to any type of organization
in any industry sector and it has been designed to be
compatible and harmonized with other international management
system standards, including ISO 9001. It is therefore
ideal for integration into existing management systems
and processes.
Beyond ISO 14001
Since ISO 14001 lays forth a best practice for proactive
management of the environmental impact of your organization,
you go beyond mere compliance when you have an ISO 14001
certified Environmental Management System. Your focus
becomes continual improvement. In order to achieve continual
improvement, the followings may able to help:
What's next?
By following the above steps, we believe you will be
able to make significant environmental improvement in
your company. For detailed information, please go to
Tools.
|
