ISO Quality Services Ltd – August 2017 Newsletter

What should be included in my Environmental Policy?

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What should be included in my Environmental Policy?

A key part of running an effective ISO 14001 Environmental Management System is to have a detailed Environmental Policy in place – but what do you need to include in this?

An Environmental policy is a written document that outlines your company’s commitment to the impact that you have on the environment. This is the building block to reducing your impact, as this document identifies what steps are to be taken and who is responsible.

So what should be included?

Areas of impact:

Being able to identify which areas you need to reduce your impact in is a strong starting point for your policy. You should highlight these areas clearly so that employees can easily identify which aspects you are working to reduce. Examples could be energy use, raw material use, emissions and more. These will differ for any company, as an example manufacturers will have a higher raw material use than an office.

How you will reduce your impact:

Identifying how you will take measures to reduce this impact is the next step in your policy. Once you have identified areas you need to improve you can analyse your activities and find ways to minimise your impact. For example, if you wanted to reduce your amount of waste, you could use your materials in a more efficient way and adopt the Reduce Reuse Recycle approach.

Who is responsible:

It’s good practice to also make reference to who is responsible for carrying out the actions detailed in the policy. Usually this would apply to the entire company, but you may wish to phrase it in other ways if you want to include external teams such as contractors. You may also want to detail it by department, so that each division knows what they need to do to reduce the impact from their team.

By including this core structure into your Environmental Policy, you will be able to use the document to significantly decrease your impact and be seen as an eco-friendly company. Running an ISO 14001 Environmental Management System can further help you to shape and develop your policy, as it will help you to see exactly what areas are doing the most damage and what actions you can take to reduce the impact.

Want to find out more about ISO 14001? Visit our website here or get in touch with our team on 01905 670303 or info@isoqsltd.com.

Are you a client of ISO Quality Services with ISO 14001 certification? Visit the “Forms and Documents” section of the client area to see a sample of an Environmental Policy. You can access the client area here.

Sources: ISO Quality Services Ltd, EnvironmentalPolicy.org.uk