Environmental Issues - Indirect (influence)/ Direct Aspects

[Grusha]

Hello everyone, this is my first time using the forum and would be really grateful for any inputs

ISO14001 was pushed through really quickly where I work and certification achieved, however, I am now finding myself going back through all the documentation to get it up to standard.

Looking at the Aspect Register, it is not clearly stated whether aspects are direct or indirect and I want to put this right. We are a small office based organisation over 8 locations, with around 300 people so aspects are limited to things such as energy usage / natural resource usage / travel etc.

I understand that direct aspects are ones that you have control over and indirect are ones that you can influence e.g. natural resource usage is direct as we have control over how much paper etc that we use.

When I apply this to a key aspect of ours which concerns energy used by delegates attending events (their travel, venue energy etc) it seems to be a bit grey as we can influence delegates to use our carshare scheme and assess the venues we use for energy efficiency but ultimately we control the amount of events we put on... should I just state that it is both direct and indirect?

Thank you!

[Randy]

Answer this....What do we have control or influence over? That's all that really matters. Don't make it any more complicated than it has to be.

[db]

First of all, welcome Grusha!

As Randy said, don't make this too complicated. You do not have to classify aspects as to direct and indirect. But if you want to clasify, then you probably will have some aspects that fit into both direct and indirect classifications.

[Grusha]

Thank you both, I have a habit of not being able to see the wood for the trees!

[Randy]

You'll do fine.

Just remember to determine the environmental impact on the trees and the woods

[SteelMaiden]

Welcome to the Cove!

As you have already heard, you do not have to classify direct and indirect. In all truthfulness I've just simplified my life by thinking, "can I influence it or not?"

You will be fine, and there is lots of information here.

[Grusha]

I will indeed! Thanks for all your help