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Environmental Management
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT relates to how a company goes about managing the impact of their operations on the enviornment, and how they satisfy environmental legislation.
In Australia, there is no uniform, national system for formal management of the environment and no national organisation charged with applying standards. The benchmark therefore, in Australia is the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Standard which is most commonly quoted in tender documents.
Environmental management takes on a risk management approach, combining the common steps of:
- Environmental hazard identification, i.e. the evaluation of the adverse effects produced by substances and processes and their potential threat to the environment - what can cause damage?
- Environmental exposure/impact assessment, i.e. estimation of the magnitude, duration and extent of exposure to the (chemical, physical or biological) hazard - how long will it last, how devastating is it likely to be?
- Risk control options and management of the environmental aspects, i.e. actions that reduce, prevent, eliminate, minimize or remove the risk - how can we control the risk?
Environmental management requires the setting of priorities for managing the natural environment and is a process of continual improvement against stated objectives and targets.
Environmental management systems must also take into account, apart from the environmental risk assessment process:
- Emergency preparedness
- Legal and regulatory requirements (including local government)
- Monitoring and review of performance targets and objectives
- Training and competency of staff to ensure systems sustainability.