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I have a few sample chart on my website that might help you. Www.Jilling.com. Go to the tools tab, and download the free tool named "sample aspects and impacts."
Having been through ISO 14001 certification once I learned that it doesn't matter how little impact your business has on the enivronment, according to your CB auditor you will (shall) have significent environmental impacts.
It goes like this.
You will most likely have a risk assessment matrix which are ubiquitis in safety and project management. That matrix will be used to assess the impact on the environment of various aspects of your business. (Search in the post attachments list in the narrow green box at the top of this page if you dont.)
Not all of you environmental impacts will be minor, By definition some impacts are greater than others so those which have the greatest impacts are therefore significient.
We are an office based business and we provide services to clients on their sites so significient impacts for us are chemicals, company cars, rental vehicles (crashes which result in spilt hydrocarbons), defunct or obsolete equipment used in client services.
Some have argued that aircraft trips are a significient impact for us even though we do not excerise effective control over the technology used or flight path but common sense prevailed in the end
It goes like this.
You will most likely have a risk assessment matrix which are ubiquitis in safety and project management. That matrix will be used to assess the impact on the environment of various aspects of your business. (Search in the post attachments list in the narrow green box at the top of this page if you dont.)
Not all of you environmental impacts will be minor, By definition some impacts are greater than others so those which have the greatest impacts are therefore significient.
We are an office based business and we provide services to clients on their sites so significient impacts for us are chemicals, company cars, rental vehicles (crashes which result in spilt hydrocarbons), defunct or obsolete equipment used in client services.
Some have argued that aircraft trips are a significient impact for us even though we do not excerise effective control over the technology used or flight path but common sense prevailed in the end
According to an interpretation by the TAG group, every organization shall identify at least one significant aspects. A simple way to think about this is, something you do has a more significant aspect than the other things you do...that would be your significant aspect....you compare your aspects to your own operations, not someone else...
G
The whole thing is turning into a farce. There are still huge mining companies and chemical processers causing pollution. And then there is all this focus on small non-polluting companies, who find that the biggest cause of pollution is their staff driving to work and copping non-conformances because they cant think of any improvements without damaging their business.
I don't think so...maybe your comment misses the point a bit....the principle is that every company, large and small, seeks ways to improve their environmental performance and reduce their footprint. You may not be a mining company, but it is the rare company where we cannot find some meaningful improvements or controls. Can't think of any actual clients I have had that fit that definition. But, I can think of many that reduced energy usage, reduced landfill volumes, ....etc....all of which saved money and improved environmental performance...not a bad day's work...
G
Its a good principal, but after a decade or so of certification, can you still find meaningful ways to reduce energy and landfill.
For my organisation we are getting close to our wits end. ( Thank god for LED fluoro replacements ).
Our factory gets too hot for the workers in summer. If the management put in the cooling system they want to, it will blow any electricity savings we've made out of the water.
Its simply getting to the point that if we want to make any more gains we have to spend massive amounts of money on solar, or recycling equipment, or more efficient plant, that wont pay for itself.
As a "cash cow" our head office would probably shut us down rather than make that kind of non-financial investment.
So we have to keep dreaming up irrelevant improvements.
Hard for me to cite specifics without being there...but I have never seen a company where we could not help them improve their environment in meaningful ways. And, there is no reason you can't air condition your plant if you want to...it is still a net savings base don the improvements you have made...
