This article points out the big mistakes that businesses make while implementing their ISO 14001 based Environmental Management System (EMS).
Most business owners today are aware of the environmental impacts created by their activities on the planet. They are also gradually realising that more customers are interested in buying from a company that gives priority to environmental management and sustainability. The ISO 14001 certification, being the top international certification for Environmental Management System (EMS), is the first step that businesses need to take to exhibit their environmental responsibility. It helps at minimising their impacts as well as restore faith in the customers about their practices of environmental sustainability.
While many businesses have been quite successful at implementing a robust framework of EMS, there are many mistakes that beginners often make. So, you should be avoiding them to make your EMS implementation successful and according to your specific environmental concerns.
4 Big Mistakes You Should be Aware of While Implementing an EMS
Lack of Documentation
To manage the impacts of business operations on the environment, organisations are required to adapt their operations, introduce new methods or practices, and assign new responsibilities to the employees. This is also a prime requirement underlined by the ISO 14001 standard. It states these as mandatory for organisations to establish an effective EMS. However, every change introduced in the business for putting EMS into practice must be well documented. Documentation is essential to clearly communicate the changes to employees, make them aware of their roles and make them accountable. Therefore, without everything documented accurately, it is not possible to bring the changes.
Being Not Aware of the Impacts
A great mistake that businesses mostly make at the start of their EMS implementation process is not assessing and becoming aware of the actual environmental impacts. It is easier to determine the environmental targets and sustainability goals. However, the EMS would not make any real implication in your business unless it enables you to control or regulate the impacts caused by your operations. Therefore, you must assess the real impacts of your organisation at the start of planning the EMS. Overall impacts in the entire lifecycle of your product or services, supply chain, and distribution activities must be assessed to build a comprehensive EMS.
No Involvement of Leaders
Allocating the task of managing environmental impacts to a single department or selected employees in the organisation is the biggest mistake that you can make. Without the involvement of the leaders of your organisation, it is not possible to make the EMS an inherent part of your business strategy. Therefore, the initiation for EMS implementation should be made by the top management team or leaders of your organisation. It gives a direction to your environmental management approach and inspires sincerity among the employees. The management team should form an environmental policy, communicate and train the employees, monitor the environmental performance and make improvements in the EMS to ensure ISO 14001 compliance.
Absence of a Measuring System
If you want to make progress with your EMS and achieve higher environmental performance, then introduce proper methods for measuring the impacts at periodic intervals. When you can measure the impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, generation of solid wastes, release of liquid wastes, electricity consumption etc., you can observe whether they are reduced or not. Therefore, you can precisely predict with data if the new practices are effective enough to achieve the intended purposes.
Creating an EMS and implementing it according to your business’s specific environmental impacts take time. You also need to be aware of these major pitfalls to ensure that your EMS is ready for the ISO 14001 certification. Even though environmental management is not made obligatory for businesses, it is the need of the hour today because of the persistent rise in global environmental concerns. The main takeaway of this article is to help avoid any possible mistakes that would impair the effectiveness of your EMS or delay the certification procedure.
