Environmental Management Systems

To ISO:14001 Certification

Whether you’re aiming for ISO:14001 Certification or not, developing a robust Environmental Management System is an important but often neglected aspect of running a responsible business.

Environmental Management is a huge field with many links into health and safety, facilities and quality management.

The scope of environmental management generally is to minimise the environmental impact that your organisation has on the local and global environment. The depth of this depends entirely on what activities your site/s conduct and the impact these activities have on the environment; these are known as ‘environmental aspects’.

Environmental Aspects

A company ascertains its environmental aspects by conducting a risk assessment and identifying when, where and how the work activities of the organisation have a negative impact on the local or global environment.

Some basic questions that just scrape the surface of what your company needs to consider in your Environment Management System (EMS).

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How much paper and ink do you use for your business activities? 

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What about electricity use; do you monitor it? Are you actively trying to reduce your energy use? What measures of control is your organisation taking to reduce or offset the amount of electricity you use?

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Do you know how much packaging you produce or handle? Is it under the 50tonne package handling threshold? If not, are you registered as a packaging handler with the environmental regulator?

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Do you know what chemicals you use?  Are they safe to be stored together and how do you dispose of them safely? Are the chemicals you use bunded to prevent leaks and spills getting into the local water systems? Are your staff trained in how to effectively clean up a chemical spill?

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Do you know the rules, regulations, legislation, approved codes of practice and government advice notes that are relevant to your organisation and its activities? 

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Is your machinery and equipment serviced annually and regularly maintained? Including the air-conditioning and fridges? (not just Portable Appliance Testing)

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How noisy is your work environment, does it affect the machine operators health or cause a nuisance to the neighbours?

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Do your staff know what to do in the event of a fire or other emergency? How do you conduct training and evidence competency? 

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How much of your waste do you recycle? Is it in line with government targets? Is your waste handled by a licensed carrier? How do you monitor and document this?

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How do you effectively communicate your company policies and procedures to all levels of the company? How do the delivery drivers or part time cleaning staff know your company environmental goals and how they can help you achieve them?

Why Manage your impact?

Whatever the size of your business; from multiple-site manufacturing companies employing hundreds of people turning over millions of pounds a year to independent traders and micro-businesses all companies have a direct and indirect impact on the local and global environment that you must consider.

An effective Environmental Management System (EMS) is a powerful tool in understanding, monitoring, and reducing your organisation’s environmental impact. This understanding not only helps the environment but will help your company save money too.

In the words of the ISO:14001 standard a good EMS is effective in helping companies:

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Protecting the environment by preventing or mitigating adverse environmental impacts;

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Mitigating the potential adverse effect of environmental conditions on the organisation

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Assisting the organization in the fulfilment of compliance obligations

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Enhancing environmental performance;

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Controlling or influencing the way the organization’s products and services are designed, manufactured, distributed, consumed and disposed by using a life cycle perspective that can prevent environmental impacts from being unintentionally shifted elsewhere within the life cycle;

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Achieving financial and operational benefits that can result from implementing environmentally sound alternatives that strengthen the organization’s market position

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Communicating environmental information to relevant interested parties.

At FutureSure we offer a full range of services to help you maintain or develop your EMS to ISO:14001 standard, whether you decide to go for the certification or not. We help you assess your current systems, sites, procedures, products, training and activities. We then carry out a thorough gap analysis to highlight what your company needs to improve upon.

Using the ISO:14001 standard as the foundation of your EMS whether your organisation decides to go for the accreditation or not, we ensure that your EMS is designed with the standard in mind with suitable sections of the management system to meet the standard:

Whats included in your FutureSure EMS?

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Organisation and Leadership commitment

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Environmental Policy

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Organisational roles, responsibilities and authorities

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Planning

Actions to address risks and opportunities and Environmental objectives and planning to achieve them

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Support and operation

Resources, Competence, Awareness, Communication, and Documented information.

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Operational planning and control

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Emergency preparedness and response

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Performance evaluation and improvement

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Understanding the needs and expectations

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Performance evaluation

Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation

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Internal auditing

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Management review

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Nonconformity and corrective action

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Continuous Improvement

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At FutureSure we help your company write policies, and procedures specific to your site with your directors and companies objectives clearly defined.

We develop Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) for you to monitor your specific objective targets performance and analyse trends.

We carry out COSHH and Environmental Risk Assessments of the site/s to identify risks and develop suitable control measures to mitigate or reduce these risks as far as reasonably practicable.

We conduct SWOT and PESTLE analysis with your organisation’s team leaders and conduct employee consultation surveys to identify risks and opportunities and other aspects that affect the company and it’s employees. These exercises open up communication and identify gaps and concerns within environmental, quality, health and safety and other aspects of the business to help you identify issues, develop controls and ensure continuous improvement.

The scope and depth of your Environmental Management System depends entirely on the size and activities of your company. There isn’t a one size fits all solution, this is an active engagement process and requires commitment from an organisation at all levels to be a success.

For a free consultation to discuss your environmental management needs please email us at info@future-sure.co.uk

Get in touch today for a no obligation quotation

Why Choose Us?

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FutureSure is a relatively new leader in business consultancy offering our Clients services and compliance products in the fields of Health and Safety, Quality, Environment and Facilities Management. Our Consultants have accumilated decades of knowledge and expertise in these fields, now consolodated together under one company; FutureSure, offering our Clients complete compliance assurance without the need of employing full time managers. Established in the Chaos of 2020 amid the global pandemic FutureSure has flourished helping our Clients stay safe around Covid-19 as well as offering our regular Health and Safety, Quality, Environment and Facilities management services.”