Environmental Management Systems and Environmental Auditing Activities

Activities for Part Four of Greening Business: An environmental management system (EMS) is a framework designed to help in the management of an organization’s environmental impacts. There are national and international standards for EMS which can lead to accredited certification, for example ISO 140001. All Environmental Management Systems are based around the cycle of: planning what needs to be done, acting on these plans, checking that plans have been acted upon and are effective, and acting to make further improvements. Environmental auditing is an important tool in an Environmental Management System used to demonstrate improvements in environmental performance, identify environmental improvements and recommend areas of improvement. Environmental auditing is broad in scope and includes social, ethical and economic dimensions as well as auditing of more traditional ‘environmental’ measures such as energy and waste