We are in the process of implementing an EMS but have not yet been audited. We have identified the significant aspects and it is time to define objectives. The boss has decided that our objectives will be to keep records (e.g. of energy use) and “find out where we are and establish a baseline”.

My concern is that this in itself will not result in any environmental improvement. However reading through the standard I can’t find a requirement that it should! Are we going to find ourselves in trouble at the audit with these objectives?

I am not in the environmental arena, but I wanted to bump this thread before it dropped off of the main page.

IMO, and remember it might not be worth much, if you can establish a baseline where none exists, that, itself, is an improvement. You have to start somewhere.

Are we going to find ourselves in trouble at the audit with these objectives?Probably: You are supposed to set objectives and targets, and formulate programmes to achieve them. In fact, the whole standard is built around the PDCA circle:
The objectives and targets shall be measurable, where practicable, and consistent with the environmental policy, including the commitments to prevention of pollution, to compliance with applicable legal requirements and with other equirements to which the organization subscribes, and to continual improvement.Have a look at ISO14004:2004, 4.1.1 and 4.3.3.1 for a more thorough description.

/Claes

Why not just refer to ISO 14001 itself?

3.9 environmental objective
overall environmental goal, consistent with the environmental policy (3.11), that an organization (3.16) sets itself to achieve

3.2 continual improvement
recurring process of enhancing the environmental management system (3.8) in order to achieve improvements in overall environmental performance (3.10) consistent with the organization's (3.16) environmental policy (3.11)

Ask this question....What good is an objective that doesn't involve doing something better?

Objectives are always about improving and never about continuation of present state or regression.

ISO 14001 is about improvement of environmental performance, as defined by you and can either be directly related to the environment, or to you EMS or both....like reducing waste or improving the way you control system documents.

Within an EMS you'll have objectives that you are not even aware of, but their accomplishement can actually be captured....Every procedure you develop will be used to accomplish something, let's say effective document control or making people competent...That "something" is nothing more than a goal that the procedure is going to help you achieve, so now you have an objective (something), program (procedure) and target (the achievement of that goal "something") the only thing missing is the monitoring and measuring and guess what, the internal audit can do that.

Therefore if you have planned to more effectively control your documents or assure the competence of your employees and can demonstrate the accomplishment of that, you have achieved a goal (objective) and improved the performance of your EMS which in turn will enable you to achieve total environmental performance achievement.

It's not hard to set good objectives, what's hard is to recognize them when they are waving their hand and saying "Hi, here I am."