• Top management should designate a management representative.
• Different roles throughout a company must support an EMS for it to be successful.

All Environmental Management System (EMS) responsibilities should be assigned to a certain individual. Assign someone for:

• EMS implementation,
• Training,
• Corrective action, and
• Monitoring environmental performance and compliance.

To start, some businesses find it helpful to designate an EMS management representative, an EMS coordinator, and an EMS team with members from each process area, and then to define the responsibilities of these individuals. As the EMS progresses, responsibilities should be assigned for all EMS-related tasks as they are added. An employee must be competent enough to carry out their assigned responsibilities. An employee also must receive proper training to do EMS-related tasks. This doesn’t have to be a structured training class. A quick chat once a week between a manager and a front-line person on their EMS duties may be more effective than a formal EMS training class. Managers must ensure that any employee assigned an EMS task has enough authority and resources—including time—to carry out the task.

The dynamics of the business will determine who should be responsible for implementing the EMS. Key concepts concerning the assignment of responsibility include:

• Managers must make it clear to employees that they consider EMS activities worthwhile and important. Management leadership is vital to the success of an EMS.
• One person alone cannot develop and implement the entire EMS. An EMS involves everyone.
• All managers must reinforce the importance of the EMS tasks assigned to their employees.
• Those who are given EMS responsibilities must feel confident that management will back them when they are doing EMS tasks.
• If a task is important enough to assign to someone, then enough authority and resources should be made available to that person to get the job done.
• Each person assigned EMS duties should be periodically evaluated on those duties. Include EMS duties in your employee performance plans and compensation policy
• EMS assignments should be documented.