List five environmental aspects that you may need to consider when conducting an ISO certification audit at manufacturing organization

Environmental Management System

 

ISO 14001 is an Environmental Management System Standard- when the organization implements the Environmental management system with the organization – with the objective of prevention of pollution and enhancement of compliance obligations at the National and International Levels.

 

The environmental aspects are the key factors that play a very important role in controlling the pollution – created by organizations.

 

So, let’s understand the Environmental aspects, and how it is identified and taken into consideration for analysis/assessment of the impact on the environment / Review for prevention of pollution in the organization.

Environmental aspects - element of an organization’s activities or products or services that can interact with the environment and creates pollution.

 

I also wanted to explain we should understand that Pollution should be understood in a broader way – we did not limit Pollution only limited to Air Pollution – There are many types of pollution Air Pollution, Water Pollution, Noise Pollution, Depletion of Natural resources, etc, and many more.

 

So, in the evaluation of Environmental aspects – we should take the environmental impact considering the pollution in a broader way i.e all possible types of Pollution.

 

Identification of Environmental aspects – above we understood that – Environmental aspects is an element of an organization’s activities or products or services that can interact with the environment and creates pollution.

Now take the   example of a Manufacturing organization and identify the at List five environmental aspects that you may need to consider when conducting an ISO certification audit at a manufacturing organization

 

Possible environmental aspects could be (but are not limited to)

Activities of the organization- Running of DG Set for power generation – to run the organization

 

In the above activities, the possible environmental aspects will be

-        Noise

-        Consumption of fuel (Diesel)- where diesel is a natural resource – when it is used for running the DG set – it is depletion of Natural resources

-        Disposal of Wastages of DG sets (For Example Fillers / used lubricants- Mobil)

 

Consider the activities of Manufacturing Units – Plant & Machinery

In the above activities, the possible environmental aspects will be

-        Use of power (Electricity) for Running the Plant & Machinery – where electricity is produced by Natural resources

-        Noise

-         Wastages of Raw Martial

-        Use of Lubricants and other consumables (for Plant & Machinery)

 

 The above example of identification of environmental aspects – has made you a clear understanding of the Environmental aspects and by taking the example of the above two activities – you can identify the potential Environmental aspects in a manufacturing organization or any type of organization.

 

Hope this will help you for a better understanding of Environmental aspects.

 

As we know that there is an ISO Standard – ISO 14001:2015 – For Environmental Management Systems - This ISO 14001 standard is adopted by the organization for the implementation of Environmental Management Systems with the objective of prevention of Pollution and enhancement of compliance obligations.  Once the organization completed the implementation, the organization approaches to ISO Certification Body to get ISO 14001 Certification. This ISO 14001 Certification provides confidence to an interested party that the organization has implemented the ISO 14001 – Environmental Management System standards in the organization and implemented EMS   complying with the requirements of ISO 14001