Article | REF: G5004 V1

Environmental Analysis

Author: Alain PRATS

Publication date: July 10, 2011

You do not have access to this resource.
Click here to request your free trial access!

Already subscribed? Log in!


Overview

Français

ABSTRACT

ISO 14001 defines environmental analysis as the analysis of activities, products and services of an organization likely to have an impact on the environment. This approach must be part of a continuous improvement process within the organization, with the view of becoming a progressive approach. In the first instance, identification should focus on the most significant actual or potential impacts and then consider other environmental impacts. There are currently no regulatory or standardized methods for conducting an environmental analysis, only methodological approaches that should be conducted with pertinence and thoroughness.

Read this article from a comprehensive knowledge base, updated and supplemented with articles reviewed by scientific committees.

Read the article

AUTHOR

  • Alain PRATS: Doctor of Natural Sciences - Engineer, consultant and trainer in the field of industrial risk, INERIS

 INTRODUCTION

Throughout this article, we will refer to "environmental analysis" as the document identifying the environmental aspects of an organization's products and services, as defined in chapter 431 of the ISO 14001 standard. We will deliberately deviate from the definition given in the EMAS regulation, which requires compliance with the provisions of Annex 1 of the regulation. Among other things, this document must list applicable regulatory requirements, identify the risk of environmental accidents, and identify indirect environmental aspects over which the organization can have an influence.

These provisions are also covered by the ISO 14001 standard, but at other levels of management system organization; for example, regulatory monitoring (chap. 432) is the subject of specific provisions, as is the identification of emergency situations (chap. 447) and the control of certain outsourced operations (chap. 446).

The ISO 14001 environmental analysis consists of an analysis of an organization's activities, products and services that are likely to have an impact on the environment. This analysis should enable the organization to identify which of its activities, products and services have or may have a significant environmental impact, and which it can consider improving.

The relevance of the analysis is crucial to the effectiveness of the environmental management system. The organization must not lose sight of the fact that this approach must itself form part of a continuous improvement process. This process must demonstrate the organization's ability to keep this analysis up to date, particularly when changes or developments are likely to occur in the processes, products or equipment used by the organization. Initially, it is important to identify the most significant impacts, and then progressively study the possibility of addressing other environmental impacts.

It's easy to agree that the quality of this analysis will depend on the relevance with which the organization judges an aspect to be significant or not.

It is also important to point out that, while environmental analysis of the impact of activities and, to a lesser extent, the services associated with these activities is generally well taken into account by organizations, the same cannot be said of the environmental impact of the products they market... In the majority of cases, organizations "skip" this part of the analysis, which may well be complex, but which nonetheless constitutes a non-conformity with the requirements of ISO 14001.

The completeness of the analysis and the method used to identify significant environmental aspects are important factors in the quality of the analysis. It is also necessary to...

You do not have access to this resource.

Exclusive to subscribers. 97% yet to be discovered!

You do not have access to this resource.
Click here to request your free trial access!

Already subscribed? Log in!


The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference

A Comprehensive Knowledge Base, with over 1,200 authors and 100 scientific advisors
+ More than 10,000 articles and 1,000 how-to sheets, over 800 new or updated articles every year
From design to prototyping, right through to industrialization, the reference for securing the development of your industrial projects

This article is included in

Environment

This offer includes:

Knowledge Base

Updated and enriched with articles validated by our scientific committees

Services

A set of exclusive tools to complement the resources

Practical Path

Operational and didactic, to guarantee the acquisition of transversal skills

Doc & Quiz

Interactive articles with quizzes, for constructive reading

Subscribe now!

Ongoing reading
Environmental analysis