Identification of Environmental Aspects
6. HOW TO PROCEED THE ASSESSMENT OF THE SIGNIFICANCE
To decide whether the environmental aspects are significant or not, it is necessary to examine and evaluate them.
The environmental aspects identified as significant must be included in the eco-management system and in the ongoing review process.
Those identified as not significant must however be taken into consideration to take into account the evolution of the situation.
To assess the significance of the environmental aspects at stake, the organization defines its own set of specific criteria. According to the EMAS Regulation the criteria "must be general, verifiable in an independent perspective, reproducible" and "take into account the Community legislation".
The annex to the regulation contains some of the criteria that the organization can use for the purpose of deciding on the significance of its environmental aspects.
In essence, to assess the significance of an environmental aspect, the organization will have to examine the following elements:
- potential to produce environmental damage;
- fragility of the local, regional or global environment;
- extent, quantity, frequency and reversibility of the impact;
- existence of relevant environmental legislation and related requirements;
- importance that the aspect has for the interested parts and for the employees.
These elements and the selected criteria can be formulated in the form of questions to which they answer "yes" or "no", or be used in a more differentiated way for the purpose of assessing the significance of the environmental aspects of an organization in a first phase and creating a list of priority of action in a second phase (eg: classifying aspects according to a "high", "medium" or "low" priority, or as "very important", "less important", "not important") .
In making this assessment, the company must also take into account the conditions of start-up and cessation of activities and of reasonably foreseeable emergency situations.
Furthermore, past, present and planned activities for the future must be taken into account.
For the purposes of evaluation, a number of information sources such as authorizations, relevant regulations (eg on quantified limits or monitoring of pollutants), national action plans, local work plans, monitoring results or scientific studies may be useful .
Regulatory bodies, customers and suppliers, groups active in favor of the environment, associations of traders or artisans, industrial associations, chambers of commerce and scientific institutions are all sources of useful information for the purposes of evaluation.
|