Understanding and Identifying Environmental Aspects and Impacts

What is Environmental Aspect

An environmental aspect is any part of an organization’s activities that can interact with the environment, either positively or negatively. Or, simply put, the way a company’s activity, service, or product impacts the environment.

This could be chemicals that are emitted into the air from a vent during processes, or chemicals that could be expelled in wastewater. For example, presence of cleaning agent in wastewater from a dry-cleaning service provider for big pharma which has a potential to contaminate water and soil. The cleaning agent in wastewater is the environmental aspect as the potential for water or soil pollution is the impact of the aspect to the environment.

Also, consider the use of resources that a company’s processes utilize like water, electricity, fuels and other raw materials, or the environmental effect of the amount of waste/ waste streams they dispose of or generate respectively.

Categories of Environmental Aspects

The major categories of environmental aspects could include (but are not limited to): 

·       Emissions to air e.g., stack emissions, fume releases, powder/dust generation

·       Wastes management (encompasses both hazardous and non-hazardous wastes from their generation to final disposal)

·       Contamination of land from discharges to land e.g., material spillages or use of fertilizers, sludges etc.

·       Consumption of natural resources and raw materials like water, energy, fossil fuels (oils, diesel, petrol etc)

·       Releases to water like wastewater/effluent discharges to wetlands, water bodies or to land seeping to groundwater reservoirs, fuel tankers bursting during transportation on water etc.

·       Other environmental issues particular to the locality and community (noise, odours, heat/radiation and biodiversity)

By reviewing the processes against each of these categories, it becomes much easier to visualize how processes of an organization can affect the environment, and this is what the environmental aspects are.

How to identify Environmental Aspects

The following steps should help in identifying an organization’s environmental aspects

1.     Define the scope of Environment Management System (EMS)

Firstly, lets define management system. A management system is the way in which an organization manages the inter-related parts of its business in order to achieve its objectives. Therefore, an EMS scope refers to the spatial, functional and organizational company boundaries to which the EMS shall apply.

To define the EMS scope, the following should be considered

·       Organizational unit(s), function(s), and physical boundaries like departments and sections.

·       Relevant internal and external issues that significantly influence intended outcomes - external issues include proximity to protected areas, wetlands or swamps and waterbodies, parks, forests or community around the establishment.

·       Legal and other obligations derived from the expectations of interested parties must be taken into consideration when you identify environmental aspects and impacts.

2.      Identify the activities, services and products of the organization

Identify all activities, services, and products that fall within the units and functions identified above keeping in mind those that are outsourced externally.

Being able to understand the main terms is key to identifying them.

·       An activity is a part of the core business (e.g., production process steps)

·       Service means an auxiliary service that supports core activities (e.g., boilers, heating & cooling, maintenance)

·       A product is the goods you offer for market. An environmental aspect of the product could be, e.g., excessive packaging of the product, or level of recyclability of the product at the end of its lifecycle.

3.      Identify the environmental aspects associated with the above activities, service and products

Aspects can be divided into direct and indirect.

Direct environmental aspects are associated with activities, products, and services of the organization itself, over which it has direct management control e.g., how wastes are managed on the site or the organization’s premises.

Indirect environmental aspects are associated with activities that an organization has no direct control over or outsourced services. e.g., how subcontractor manages waste on the organization’s site, chain-controlled aspects, customer-controlled aspects. This especially useful for non-industrial organizations.

As discussed above, environmental aspects for a specified activity/product/ service must include:

·       Associated activity/sub-activity with the product/ process

·       Contribution to the process (raw material, energy resources, other utilities, etc.)

·       Process output (product, waste, heat/radiation/ illumination, etc.)

·       Emissions into the atmosphere (flue gases, fumes, particulate, noise, fugitive emissions, VOC, etc.)

·       Waste generation and disposal, land contamination, and outfall (Effluent) releases (liquid waste, chemical spillage, leakage, oil spills, etc.)

·       Aspect resulting from the process/activity

·       The consequences of the aspects (air, water, land, noise pollution, resource depletion).

·       Operation condition (Normal, Abnormal, emergency)

4.      Assess the risks presented to the environment by aspects

This step helps identify the impacts/effects an aspect will have on the environment for example;

·       Direct impacts occurring through direct interaction of an activity with an environmental, social, or economic component e., a discharge of any industry or an effluent from the Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) into a river may lead to a decline in water quality in terms of high biological oxygen demand (BOD) or dissolved oxygen (DO) or rise of water toxins.

·       Indirect impacts often produced away from or as a result of a complex impact pathway. The indirect impacts are also known as secondary or even third level impacts. For example, ambient air SO2 rise due to stack emissions may deposit on land as SO4 and cause acidic soils. Another example of indirect impact is the decline in water quality due to rise in temperature of water bodies receiving cooling water discharge from the nearby industry.

5.      Evaluate the significant environmental aspects

From these activities, products or services, and their impacts, identify those with significant environmental aspects.

The purpose of the evaluation of environmental aspects is focusing on what matters the most. Significant environmental aspects are the focus of an organization’s environmental management system.

Depending on type, nature, and complexity of an organization, there are many techniques available for conducting an evaluation to determine the significance of environmental aspects. In assessing the significance, consider:

·         Potential to cause environmental harm

·         Size and frequency of the aspect

·         Importance to the stakeholders of the organization

·         Requirements of relevant environmental legislation

Establish criteria for significance based on a systematic review of the organization’s environmental aspects and their actual and potential impacts.

6.      Manage/control significant environmental aspects and their impacts

Every significant aspect should be brought under control by establishing one or more of the following controls: 

·      Identify the current or existing controls to reduce the risk or impact.

·       Responsible person. Decide what further action is needed to control the residual risks, who needs to carry out the action, and when the action should be completed.

·       Training plan or procedure, checklist and/or maintenance schedule.

The Level of control should be appropriate to the nature and risk of the significant aspect. 

7.      Record the significant findings

Findings can be recorded in an environmental aspect/impact register.

Activity	Environmental Aspect	Source/ Origin	Impact	Control
HVAC	Emission from boiler	Chimney	Air quality depletion	Stack emissions monitoring

Conclusion

Identification and evaluation of environmental aspects is the foundation for an environment management system and helps make a better understanding of how an organization interacts with environment.

For a comprehensive or customizable Environment Aspect/Impact register, contact Safe Green Ways or leave us a comment.

Let us know if this article was helpful.

Thank you for reading!