A New Strategy for Pollution Prevention and Waste Reduction Through Environment Management
E-Book, Englisch, 540 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-12-799985-2
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
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CHAPTER ONE A Primer on Responsible Environmental Management
1.1 Introduction
This chapter serves as a primer for responsible environmental management. It introduces some important terminology that is used throughout the handbook, including the terms environmental aspects, responsible care, environmental management systems, environmental metrics, and several others. After we standardize our vocabulary, we focus on certain aspects of responsible care, including fiscal responsibility or what we refer to in the Preface as environmental economics. Environmental economics is a subset of responsible care. We examine this subject in detail in Chapter 3. A final word by way of introduction: For those readers already familiar with today’s jargon on responsible care and environmental management, this chapter still is worth looking over. We have not simply quoted generally recognized definitions of important terms but rather tried to place them within a practical context by relating them to experiences encountered in our consulting practices. Perhaps more important, we tried to relate some of the terminology within a context of historical use. We believe this is important. Although environmental management practices certainly have evolved over the years, the core principles of acting in a responsible manner—whether it be for worker protection, public safety, or fiscal soundness—have remained the same over the decades. This is best illustrated by the examples cited in those chapters that deal with case studies from different industry sectors. 1.2 Environmental Aspects
Today, we use the term environmental aspect to describe a certain feature of a business that, in fact, companies have concerned themselves with since as early as the late 19th century, albeit attaching lesser importance to it. The term environmental aspect (EA) refers to the relevant issue(s) that a management needs to address, irrespective of level of abstraction, such as waste management, worker protection, compliance, public safety, property damage, global warming, resource extraction, lack of knowledge about process emissions, toxic material management, and biodiversity. If we sat back and generated a list of EAs associated with our business or operating division within a company, we in fact would be developing a basis to define the scope of the responsibility of an environmental management system (EMS). The list that identifies the EAs logically leads to defining the inputs to other actions aimed at their management, which forms the basis for both a strategy and action plans. The EAs you identify on your company’s list are those specific to your operations and have an impact on the business of your company. They indeed are the only ones that the company can focus attention to, because they are specific to that business and not some other company. Hence, they are the basis of the company’s strategy, its policy toward environmental management and its action plans, and they influence corporate decisions that affect finances. Companies that rely on a formal EMS apply the EA concept to managing compliance issues in an aggressive manner. In contrast, companies that conduct their business without an explicit list of EAs generally tend to lack transparency in the priority setting of their environmental work, even though they may have a corporate environmental policy statement. All companies really should explicitly identify their EAs, if for no other reason than that it brings clarity and transparency to the organization’s management of environmental issues. Among the reasons why transparency is needed are: • Internal to the company management, both decision makers and line and function people require it to effectively implement corrective actions and action plans and to make the hard decisions concerning resource and money allocations. • Internal to the company again, the accounting division needs transparency to properly account for environmental expenditures in the bottom line. • External to the company, shareholders and investors demand this today, more so than at any other time in history. • Homeland Security and emergency responders need access to this information, because it can have an impact on emergency preparedness and responses to environmental catastrophes. • It can serve as a form of insurance against frivolous claims of wrongdoing and lawsuits, or in being named as a potentially responsible party (PRP) to environmental damages. • It can help protect the future value of assets or property, especially at the time of sale or in mergers and acquisitions. The term EA is used to identify the important issues an organization should take into consideration in its environmental work. These include things that we care about due to its human aspects, such as noise, odor, occupational exposures to potentially harmful environments and situations, laws and regulations, being a good neighbor, and responding to a complaining community. EAs can be a product’s or production process’s environmental impact, such as emissions to a nearby stream, lake, or river; smokestack emissions; or the overuse of energy. Some other examples are emissions of a chemical, waste generation, production leakage, recycling, hazardous materials, electromagnetic fields, and the impact on flora and fauna. Now, of course, what we have focused on are negative EAs. The negative EAs are what companies need to focus on reducing, eliminating, or preventing as a part of their strategy. But, is it practical to eliminate all negative EAs? The answer is yes and no. All organizations, large and small, have limitations. They have limitations in resources that range from expertise to money to personnel and even technologies. Elimination of all the negative EAs stemming from a business can be impractical in the short run, but is both a reasonable target and likely achievable over time. This is why simply having a list of EAs is simply not enough. An organization must place effort and resources into deciding which EAs are the most critical and should be addressed first. In other words, EAs must be given a prioriy for a company to develop a logical, effective action plan that systematically eliminates or reduces the severity of negative impacts over time. Before we set priority EAs, let us first examine the term within the context of a specific EMS. There are different types of EAs according to the International Standards Organization (ISO) standards. The EMS, ISO 14001, and other international standards are used by companies to find a common basis for managing the environment affected by a business’ operations. Implementation of an EMS, like ISO 14001, includes defining the environmental policy, planning and implementing of an environmental program, checking measures according to goals, and reviewing by management. ISO 14001 is characterized by demands for continuous measurements and an EMS that is business focused. According to ISO 14001 (1996), EAs are “elements of an organization’s activities, products or services that can interact with the environment.” The environment is defined as “surroundings in which an organization operates, including air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans, and their interrelation.” Further, the term environmental impact (EI) is “any change of the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organization’s activities, products or services.” Annex A to ISO 14001 states, The process to identify the significant environmental aspects associated with the activities at operating units should, where relevant, consider: • Emissions to air • Releases to water bodies • Waste management • Contamination of land • Use of raw materials and natural resources • Other local environmental issues. Significant EAs are the most important ones, those that cause the highest environmental impact or are important due to legislation and other requirements (e.g., environmental policy, customer demands). Significance equals the priority setting (not relative) among chosen EAs at a company. 1.3 Aspects and Indicators
Here’s another term to add to our vocabulary, environmental indicator (Ei). An Ei is a quantifiable aspect. In ISO 14042, the term aspect is not used; however, the term impact category is applied—but the terms are equivalent in a practical sense. A category indicator is a quantifiable representation of an impact category. In ISO 14042, the term weighting is described as “the process of converting indicator results of different impact categories by using numerical factors based on value-choices.” The application and use of weighting methods should be consistent with the goal and scope of the organization, and it should be fully transparent. Weighting methodology is important because it allows an organization to quantify the...
