Essay On Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental Management System Tools, their role, integration with EMS implementation and interaction –

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) –

EIA will provide the organisation with the methodology and process to identify the potential environmental effects of their actions and activities before they are carried out. This makes it easier for the organisation to take environmental considerations into account at an early stage and allows for controls and mitigation to be built into any plans. An EIA could be carried out on the site clear up activities that are planned by the organisation in relation to the removal of previous occupants’ chemicals and dealing with the contaminated land. The EIA would assist with the project planning to allow the least residual adverse impacts be identified and could also include a monitoring strategy.

Environmental Audit

Environmental audit has a specific role as an environmental management tool as it forms an integral part of any EMS. Environmental auditing provides the organisation with the ability to check compliance and assess the effectiveness of systems and is also a mechanism for measuring how environmental improvements are performing. These improvements may have been implemented as a result of setting up and running the EMS.

Environmental audits have four main roles, summarised as follows:

• verification ‐ to determine whether the EMS is meeting the specified standard e.g. ISO 14001

• to identify the environmental problems associated with the production of goods or services before they become liabilities

• to develop benchmarks of good practice

• to act as the basis of an evolving corporate environmental strategy

The audit will verify compliance with legislation and would also identity an...

... middle of paper ...

...ure senior management support at least one member of the team should be drawn from the organisations senior management. The rest of the team should be drawn from across the business, to ensure companywide co-operation and to get a cross section of experience on to the team.

In the medium term, effective EMS should prove to be at least cost neutral and will often lead through to sustained savings via environmental efficiencies in waste and energy management. Organisations can approach the development of their EMS in many different ways, for example in larger companies staff may be directly employed whilst in smaller businesses existing staff may be trained and duties extended to include the EMS. In some instances consultants are appointed to assist with EMS development and some businesses have benefited from grant aided / funded programmes promoting EMS development.