DETERMINATION AND EVALUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS WITHIN ISO 14001:2004 FRAMEWORK

Transcription

1 DETERMINATION AND EVALUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS WITHIN ISO 14001:2004 FRAMEWORK Bugra Çakir Turkish Standards Institution Ege Izgi Çakir Turkish Standards Institution ABSTRACT In this paper, a numerical evaluation method, in order to determine environmental aspects and impacts of these aspects as a starting point in the application of ISO 14001:2004 Standard and to facilitate organizations take more effective and value adding decisions in the course of determination, more than a subjective evaluation, is defined. Moreover, a numerical method considering parameters defined in ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2000 and defining which information will be used and how, is explained in order to determine aspects and impacts of them. Organizations should understand what kind of interaction they have with environment in order to establish a proper environmental management system and to improve this management system. The work of an environmental management system starts by this stage. The elements of an organization that interact with environment are defined as environmental aspect. Emissions, discharge, noise, odour, energy consumption, material used, product that comes out could be given as examples. An organization, while establishing its environmental management system, should consider also the environmental aspects that it controls and is affected by. The positive or negative impacts that the environmental aspects of organization have on environment are defined also as environmental impact. Examples such as air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, use of natural resources can be given examples for negative environmental impacts whereas controlling quality of land and water, using mud as fertilizer, employment, training, raising awareness can be examples for positive impacts. The relationship between aspect and impact is a cause and effect relationship. When it is thought that the organizations have a lot of aspects and impacts, it will not be possible for the organization to interfere in all impacts of these aspects neither from economical nor from 1

2 technological sides. Therefore, the aspects that have significant impacts, in other words, the significant environmental aspects among these aspects, should be selected. For this operation, there is a need for determining criteria. The criteria determined should involve a lot of factors such as environmental characteristics, legal requirement information, demands of related parties, demands of parties, which the organization is a member of. Top Management, using these criteria, determines the places of needs for development and control. The application of most ISO elements such as the policy, aim and targets, training, communication, operation control is dependent on the determination of significant environmental aspects and impacts. For an organization that cares to produce causing the least pollution, it is highly important to define the environmental aspects and their impact and to determine significance gradation in order to control the resources. However, in order to determine the significance gradation, a single method appropriate for each organization does not exist. Each organization by considering its own scope, size and structure, should select an appropriate approach in order to determine its significance gradation. In other words, the organization should evaluate the impact that might occur in any life cycle stages of all activities, products and services of the organization. Organization should take environmental impacts into consideration that might occur in each activity, in any or all stages of products or services. The organization, first of all, should understand its own products and services in order to verify this. An organization, when evaluating the impacts, should focus on the units of it, time flows, geological position, products, services, materials or environment affected by energy use. In order to define environmental impacts once again, normal and abnormal work requirements that involve starting, stopping, emergency cases and accidents should be evaluated also. The organizations that make evaluation, besides the impacts that they could control directly, should consider also the ones that they could control indirectly. Among the activities that are controlled indirectly by the organization, services such as purchased product and delivery are involved as well. The legal necessities and the views of related parties are among the elements that should be taken into consideration. For the operations carried out by suppliers and subcontractors, the products or the services used or produced should be all considered. Inputs and outputs of materials or energy in all processes, technology, setting, organizational activities and data that are measurable or immeasurable in the products and services of the organization should be collected from informational sources. 2

3 Possible information sources include; a) general information documents, such as brochures, catalogues and annual reports, b) operations manual, process flowcharts, or quality and product plans, c) reports from previous audits, assessments or reviews, such as initial environmental reviews or life cycle assessments, d) information from other management systems, such as quality or occupational health and safety, e) technical data reports, published analyses or studies, or lists of toxic substances, f) applicable legal requirements or other requirements to which the organization subscribes, g) codes of practice, national and international policies, guidelines and programmes, h) purchasing data, i) product specifications, product development data, Material/Chemical Safety Data Sheets (M/CSDS), or energy and material balance data, j) waste inventories, k) monitoring data, l) environmental permit or licence applications, m) views of, requests from, or agreements with interested parties, and n) reports on emergency situations and accidents. In addition, how the organizational activities affect environmental change, environmental anxiety of related parties, legal requirements, permission, evaluation of pointed aspects by the unions that are become members of, should not be ignored. While determining impacts of environmental aspects, evaluation carried out by persons who are familiar with the activity, product and service and have knowledge about environment, increase the rate of the success. Although there is not one approach to define environmental aspects, the selected approach should involve; Emission to air, Discharge to water and land, Use of raw materials and natural resources, Environmental publications, Transfer of energy, Waste and sub-products, Physical specifications. and when carrying out these works, the organization should consider also the following; The structure of organization, The structure of management and responsibilities, Resource management, Design and development, Use of raw material and natural resources, Process of production and support processes, Packaging and delivery, 3

4 Constitution, use and annihilation of products, Environmental performance and its implications on contractors and suppliers, Waste management (Air emission, waste water discharge layer and hazardous substances), Natural life and diversity, Land pollution. The organization, after defining environmental aspects, should determine the impacts of these aspects. There is a lot of approach for this operation. These approaches are impacts such as; inputs and outputs of cause and effect diagrams, mass balance and life cycle assessment. The selected approach should take; Negative environmental impacts as much as positive ones, Genuine or potential environmental impacts, Physical impacts such as air, water, land, flora, fauna, cultural heritage, public image, legal status, image, Information such as the length of time that the impact formed, severity that control the environmental variation structure in environment, Emergency situations as one of the elements that affect setting characteristics, into consideration. Significance is a relative concept; it cannot be defined in absolute terms and may vary from organization to organization depending on the size, structure, and complexity of the operations. Ranking of significance involves a subjective structure and evaluation of significance both technically and logically should be effective. Organization, by making a plan, should try to take significant environmental impacts under control. Environmental impacts, as mentioned in the beginning of the article, are the basics of environmental management system. Establishing and applying such criteria should provide consistency and reproducibility in the assessment of significance. When establishing criteria for significance, the following items should be taken into account: a- the information such as the severity, duration and frequency of the impact, b- applicable legal requirements, c- the concerns of internal and external interested parties (such of those related to organizational value, public image, noise, odour or visual degradation), and by using threshold value, which aspects are significant, should be decided. The criteria determined are applied on the environmental impacts by considering the environmental aspects of the organization. In the Appendix, a quantitative evaluation is made 4

5 by taking all parameters into account that ISO AND ISO refer to. The evaluation should be reviewed periodically. 5

6 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT EVALUATION CHART ACTIVITY APPEARED ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECT APPEARED STAGE PRODUCTION GLASS INPUT LEATHER INPUT NYLON OUTPUT PLASTIC OUTPUT SOLVENT INPUT OFFICE ALUMINIUM OUTPUT WASTE PAPER OUTPUT ELECTRICITY OUTPUT WATER BATTERY SEVERITY APPEARANCE FREQUENCY 5 The environmental impact is ceased more than a hundred years. 6 In every shift 4 - The environmental impact is ceased between fifty and a hundred years. 5 Once a day 3 - The environmental impact is ceased between five and fifty years. 4 - Once a week 2 - The environmental impact is ceased between a month and five years. 3 Once a month 1 - The environmental impact is ceased in a month. 2 Only when stopping and starting 0 No environmental impact (Annihilated according to the rules or a system to be used is available) 1 Only in emergency case and accidents LEGAL STATUS 3- Possibility to be against laws 2- Kept under control through following & measuring according to laws 1- No legal requirements METHOD AIR+WATER+LAND+IMAGE+FLORA+FAUNA+PUBLIC IMAGE=TOTAL IMPACT TOTAL IMPACT*LEGAL STATUS*APPEARANCE FREQUENCY=TOTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT GRADATION AIR WATER LAND IMAGE PLANT ANIMAL PUBLIC IMAGE CULTURAL HERITAGE TOTAL IMPACT LEGAL STATUS APPEARANCE FREQUENCY TOTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT GRADATION 6