Small Company with ISO 14001 Environmental Targets Questions

[abrnidgrl]

Hello,
I work in a small company that mainly distributes plastic and rubber products that are purchased and manufactured elsewhere. We were required to become ISO14001 by one of our customers, and we would like to put a usable program in place. Right now we are tracking electrical usage, and want to add paper and cardboard recycling in the future. Unfortunately, we are not sure how to set up goals and targets to track improvements for these two areas. Does anyone have any experience in tracking this information and how you show improvement?

Thanks,

 

[JQuality]

The first thing I would do is to establish your current baseline for each of the items you wish to set targets for. Once you have a baseline value setting the targets is fairly easy. Just evaluate the type of activities you are planning on implementing and make your best estimate as to how what you are planning to implement will impact that baseline figure.

When I set up a new ISO 14001 program my very first set of targets is to establish baselines for all the different projects we plan to implement.

The initial targets don’t actually have to result in the reduction of your environmental impacts. Just gaining a better understanding of your current condition is a worthy endeavor.

 

[Randy]

You can use the "establish baseline" as an objective and then set a date you want to have it done as the target

Targets and objectives are not the same thing and have very distinct and different definitions that are absolute in both use and their requirements...You'll find this in Section 3 of ISO 14001...A part of the standard very commonly overlooked and under utilized

 

[kalehner]

Don't forget to normalize the potential impact to take into consideration variations in production. An example might be gallons of water used per ton on paper produced in a paper mill. Normalize energy for production and environmental factors including heat or cooling degree days. Use run charts (graphs) to show progress and make sure you have a good process for pursuit of the objective and targets like Lean or a watered down version of Six Sigma DMAIC.