This document provides guidance on identifying environmental aspects and impacts as part of an environmental management system. It discusses establishing a team to identify aspects, educating the team on the purpose and implications, identifying aspects and impacts for each activity, and developing a procedure to determine which aspects have significant impacts. It provides examples of factors to consider for determining significance, such as legal issues, public concern, frequency and severity of impacts. Homework is assigned to complete the identification and ranking of aspects and impacts.

1. ISO 14001
Section 4.3.1
Environmental Aspects
Julie Woosley, NC DPPEA
Coordinator, EMS
Development Course
for Government Agencies
Novozymes facility
Franklinton, NC
October 9, 2001

2. 4.3.1 Environmental Aspects
 “The organization shall establish and maintain (a)
procedure(s) to identify the environmental aspects
of its activities, products, or services that it can
control and over which it can be expected to have
an influence, in order to determine those which
have or can have significant impacts on the
environment. The organization shall ensure that
the aspects related to these significant impacts are
considered in settings its environmental
objectives.
 The organization shall keep this information up-
to-date.”

3. Core Elements of EMS
 Most other elements are directly associated with
results from identifying and ranking aspects and
their associated impacts:
– Objectives and Targets
– Management Program
– Training/Awareness
– Operational Control
– Emergency preparedness
– Monitoring and measuring
– Corrective and Preventative Action
– Auditing

4. Definition of Aspect / Impact
 Environmental aspect (cause or input)
– element of organizations activities, products, or
services which can interact with the
environment.
 Environmental impact (effect or output)
– any change to the environment whether adverse
or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from
an organization’s activities, products, or
services

5. Aspect and Impact Example
Activity,
Product, Service
Aspect Impact
Boiler
Operations
Air emissions Air pollution
Fuel
consumption
Natural resource
depletion
Boiler
blowdown
Water pollution
Water
consumption
Natural resource
depletion

6. Step One
1) Establish a team.
Examples: representative of QA/QC,
maintenance, utilities, production divisions,
office, environmental, etc.
2) Educate the team on purpose and
implications of identifying aspects and
impacts.
Include general training on EMS’s and ISO
14001.

7. Purpose and Implications
 Determining the significant environmental
aspects and associated impacts allows a
facility to focus its time and resources on
those issues with the greatest potential
for environmental impact.

8. Purpose and Implications
 The evaluation of environmental aspects
and their associated impacts should be
primarily “fenceline” issues.
– 3.12 Definition of organization will establish
“fenceline” or boundaries.
– Internal issues should not be a
primary focus unless health and
safety are included in management
system.

9. Purpose and Implications
 The organization only has to identify those
environmental aspects that it “can control
and over which it can be expected to have
influence”.
– Control includes fiscal control (financial ability
that can affect aspect) and organizational
control (decision making authority that can
effect aspect)
– The facility should not spend resources
assessing aspects it cannot do anything about.

10. Purpose and Implications
 The significant environmental aspects that
are identified will determine how other
elements of the standard are fulfilled:
– Operational procedures
– Education, competence and training of
employees whose activities affect these aspects.
– Monitoring and measuring techniques.

11. Step Two
Identify Aspects / Impacts
 Select an activity, a product or service.
 Identify as many environmental aspects as
possible associated with the selected
activity.
 Identify as many actual and potential,
positive and negative, environmental
impacts associated with each identified
aspect.

12. Activity Environmental Aspect Env. Impact Check if Control
Inputs Outputs
Positive
Impact
Controls in
place
(yes/no)
Can controls
be improved
(yes/no/maybe) Comments Rating
#1
See Aspects Codes See Impacts Codes
Rating Codes:
1 = Environmental impact during normal or abnormal operation
2 = Possible control improvements or there is a possible significant impact
3 = Current controls are acceptable or there is no potential significant impact
Example Aspect / Impact Form

13. Identifying Aspects of Activities
Activity
Inputs:
Raw material
Electricity
Water
Outputs:
Finished product
Exhaust
Waste products

14. Identifying Aspects and Impacts
 Aspects of activities that should be
considered include:
– Emissions to air / releases to water
» Surface and groundwater
– Waste disposal / land contamination
– Raw material / natural resource use
» energy, water, chemicals, lumber, etc.
– Local environmental / community issues
» noise, odor, land use, appearance, etc.

15. Sources of information
 process flow diagram
 input/output (mass balance)
 regulatory reports
 utility bills
 QC information (defects, product changes)
 waste hauling records
 purchasing receipts
 records of external communication

16. Aspects and Impacts - Feedback
 What did your facility do?
 Are you finished identifying
aspects/impacts?
 How many did you identify?

17. Step Three
Identify significant aspects
1) Develop a definition of significance and
determine what factors will be considered
in determining significance
» Should involve input from top management
2) Establish a rating scheme for the factors of
significance

18. Factors to Consider
 Environmental Concerns such as:
– The scale of the impact
– The severity of impact
– The probability of impact
– Duration of impact
 Business Concerns such as:
– Potential regulatory and legal exposure
– Difficulty and cost of changing the impact
– Effect of change on other activities and processes
– Concerns of interested parties
– Effect on the public image of the organization

19. Example Rating Scheme
Significance Criteria Rating Scheme
Legal Liabilities: Is the aspect
regulated
Low (1): Issue not regulated
Medium (2): Violation or possible fine
High (3): Criminal Action
Public Concern: Has the Public
ever expressed concern about the
aspect
Low (1): never
Medium (2): sometimes
High (3): Often
Frequency: What is the overall
frequency or probability of the
aspects impact
Low (1): less than once a year
Medium (2): Between 1/mn and 1/yr
High (3): Occurs monthly or more freq.
Severity: What is the overall
severity of the aspects impact
Low (1): impact aesthetic, amenity
Medium (2): impact water, air, soil quality
High (3): detrimental to human, flora fauna

20. Example Significance Matrix
Activity,
Product,
Service
Aspect Impact Legal
Liability
Public
Concern
Frequency Severity OSR Significance
(OSR>2.5)
Dissolve
Mineral
Ore
Water
use
Resource
depletion
1 3 2 1 1.75 No
Natural
Gas
Use
Resource
depletion
1 1 2 2 1.50 No
Natural
Gas
Use
Air
pollution
(Nox)
1 2 2 1 1.50 No
Use of
Strong
Acids
Spills to
land or
water
3 2 3 3 2.75 Yes

21. Dames and Moore
Significance Determination
 Included Health and Safety in their EMS: EHS
– Why?:
» Leverage clear relationship b/w H&S and Env. impacts
» To prioritize H&S and improve performance
» Organizational convenience
» NOTE: Don’t recommend including H&S during
implementation
 Organized in form of a consequence and
frequency matrix

29. Ranking Environmental Aspects:
Example Procedures and Lists
 City of Gastonia, NC
 City of Charleston, SC
 City of Scottsdale, AZ

30. Additional Resources
 ISO 14004
 See DPPEA website
http://www.p2pays.org/iso/index.htm
 Refer to Alcoa and Uniroyal Chemical Co.
EMS Manuals on our website, others:
http://www.p2pays.org/iso/tools/manuals.htm
 Coaches – ask if you would like help on
aspect/impact identification and ranking
 Road maps

31. From the EMS Team Meeting to
determining significance
 Effective Meeting/Group Project
Management Handbook
– Remember to take notes at EMS Team
meetings: how did you agree to determine
aspects/impacts, ranking?
– Use discussion techniques listed to determine
what factors you will use to rank aspects:
brainstorming, multivoting, nominal group
consensus, reaching consensus
– Write the procedures

32. Exercise: Determining Significance
 What factors do you think are important for
determining significance? List at least 15
 Vote on three each

33. Expectations of Participants:
Your BACK PACK!
 Be enthusiastic
 Attend all courses
 Complete homework and bring to course
 Keep in touch with your coach
 Persevere
 Ask for help
 Be Creative
 Keep developing your EMS between
course meetings and after the course ends

34. EMS Team Members:
Add some WATER
to your backpacks!
Willingness - to learn and participate
Agenda - so everyone is prepared
Talking stick – so everyone knows the
ground rules for meetings
Energy and Enthusiasm – no such thing as too much
Role understanding – for each participant, for both EMS
meetings and for EMS design and implementation

35. Road Maps
Don’t go hacking through the jungle,
follow the Yellow Brick Road
See Guides – Online Resources
 IEMS
 Implementation Guide for Small and Medium-
Sized Businesses
 Environmental Aspects Identification – activities
list (fishbone diagram) – Suzanne Sessoms,
August 28
 Gap analysis (initial environmental review) See
GEMI handout – John Burke

36. Homework Assignment
For next course meeting (Nov. 13):
 Complete identification of aspects and
impacts
 Rank aspects and impacts
 Determine significant aspects and impacts

37. If you get stuck. . .
. . . Ask for help!
 On-line Resources
 Your Coach – ask them to help you!
 DPPEA Staff
 DPPEA’s free EMS training
 DPPEA’s free, non-regulatory waste assessments