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Organizations implement an Environmental Management System (EMS) to improve environmental performance, and central to an EMS are environmental aspects and impacts. Organizations must understand how operational activities interact with the environment (the aspects) and the changes to the environment that result (the impacts).
Environmental aspects and impacts help organizations determine what activities, products, and services can be changed to improve environmental performance.
The EMS framework consists of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. Organizations go through the cycle when first establishing an EMS and then repeatedly go through the cycle for continual improvement. Environmental aspects and impacts are relevant to every part of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle.
Foundational to the EMS planning and development process, environmental aspects and impacts help organizations:
Additionally, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 requires organizations seeking ISO 14001 certification to identify environmental aspects and impacts.
After top management establishes an environmental policy formally committing to reducing environmental impacts and achieving continual improvement, determine the organization’s environmental aspects and impacts.
Once identified: