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ABSTRACT / The methodological framework set by standards ISO 14001 and ISO 14004 gives only general principles for environmental aspects assessment, which is
regarded as one of the most critical stages of implementing
environmental management system. In Estonia, about 100
organizations have been certified to the ISO 14001. Experience obtained from numerous companies has demonstrated
that limited transparency and reproducibility of the assessment process serves as a common shortcoming. Despite
rather complicated assessment schemes sometimes used,
the evaluation procedures have been largely based on
subjective judgments because of ill-defined and inadequate
assessment criteria. A comparison with some similar studies
in other countries indicates a general nature of observed
inconsistencies. The diversity of approaches to the aspects
assessment in concept literature and to the related problems
has been discussed. The general structure of basic
assessment criteria, compatible with environmental impact
assessment and environmental risk analysis has also been
outlined. Based on this general structure, the article presents
a tiered approach to help organize the assessment in a more
consistent manner.
the most difficult requirements of ISO 14001 implementation (Jackson 1997), the methodological issues
of the aspects evaluation have been largely overlooked.
On the one hand, this might be caused by the fact that
companies are largely reluctant to expose their sensitive environmental problems. As a rule, environmental
consultants and auditors facing this problem are restricted by the confidentiality requirement, preventing
a broader discussion. On the other hand, environmental practitioners might be discouraged by the
complexity of the problem and prefer the most pragmatic approaches, which also tend to be oversubjective.
ISO 14001 implementation guidebooks (e.g., Jackson
1997, Belmane and others 2002, Kinsella and McCully
2003) have taken a quite restricted approach to this
issue, each presenting just one assessment scheme
without discussion. Earlier, only Block (1999) had
made an attempt to provide a more general description
of the evaluation process, illustrated by some case
studies with different assessment schemes, whereas
Johnston and others (2000) proposed a risk-matrixbased approach. Recently, Whitelaw (2004) presented
five assessment models. However, none of them has
focused on the selection of assessment criteria or on
the comparability of impact assessment among ISO
14001, EIA, and ERA. Moreover, Zobel and Burman
(2004) have concluded that research on the identification and assessment of environmental aspects in the
ISO 14001 context is missing. At the same time, the
results of studies performed in US manufacturing
2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
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Method of Study
In Estonia, ISO 14001 was adopted in 1998. The
current study is based on the experience gained from
22 Estonian companies that were adopting the ISO
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1.Amount 2. Probability/
4. Severity/
6. Spatial 7. Temporal 8. Regulatory
11. Aspect
12. Influence on
Company of aspect frequency
3. Magnitude danger
5. Detectability extent
scale
status
9. Stakeholders 10. Economical controllabilitty other activities
Criteria
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T. P@der
Dimensions of Significance
Significance in Concept Literature
Facing the aspects significance assessment, one has
to ask the following: (1) Are there certain criteria that
must be, directly or indirectly, taken into account? (2)
What kind of interrelationship exists between selected
criteria? (3) How is significance assessment within the
framework of the ISO 14001 environmental management system compatible with those in EIA and ERA. In
fact, case studies indicate that these questions have not
been clearly articulated. Moreover, the basic literature
about it is inconsistent.
The methodological framework set by ISO 14001
states that the aspects evaluation is primarily based on
their environmental impact assessment, whereas ISO
14004 provides that business concerns could also be
considered. The list of such concerns includes potential regulatory and legal exposure, difficulty of changing the impact, cost of changing the impact, effect of
change on other activities and processes, concerns of
interested parties, and effect on the public image of
the organization. As shown in Table 2, several case
organizations have included the criteria that ISO 14004
refers to as business concerns. ISO 14001 implementation handbooks and papers consider these concerns in a manner different (Table 3). Some sources
(e.g., Kinsella and McCully 2003, Ghisellini and Thurston 2005) proposed a set of criteria consisting mainly
of business concerns specified by ISO 14004. In contrast, among the nine criteria presented by Whitelaw
(2004), only two (legislation, future activities) could be
regarded as business concerns. Recently, Zobel and
Burman (2004) reported a deep disagreement between
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Belmane and
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McCully (2003)
Gisellini and
Thurston (2004)
Whitelaw (2004)
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T. P@der
Severity
For a more detailed approach, severity of an environmental impact can be seen as consisting of four
basic dimensions (attributes):
Magnitude characterizes changes in measurable
environmental characteristics of components of
interest (endpoints/targets). Concentration of
chemical substances in air, soil, and water, populations, primary production, biodiversity, and human
health are examples of measurable variables. Magnitude is basically value-laden. First, the selection of
assessment endpoints is based on the recognition of
certain environmental values. Additionally, evaluation
criteria, such as the type of impact, are normally of
different importance. Thereafter, specific threshold
values could be applied to some variables. The larger
the magnitude of an impact, the more significant the
impact is, assuming the other significance dimension
being constant.
Spatial extent characterizes the physical area influenced by a particular environmental aspect. In some
cases, it can also be expressed as an amount of a certain
resource extracted or a quantity of affected individuals.
The larger the spatial dimensions (number of affected
individuals) of an impact, the more significant is the
aspect causing it.
Temporal dimension is presented by the duration and
persistence of the impact. For some endpoints, the
durations of the impact-causing aspect and that of the
impact itself are approximately equal (e.g., heavy
transport activity and the related noise level), whereas
other persist longer or can even be irreversible (e.g.,
noise-induced health problems, or damages of water
ecosystems due to the accidental release of waste water). Long-lasting impacts are more significant.
Importance. Components of concern (targets/endpoints) can be qualitatively different (e.g., humans,
wildlife populations, water resources, etc.) and carry
different values. This results in a need for an additional
value dimension reflecting their relative importance
(specific value of endpoints), which should be taken
into account when comparing the significance of impacts. The higher the value of the affected object, the
more significant is the impact.
The above-mentioned dimensions present the basics
of severity. If one or more of them were ignored, the
assessment scheme would be biased.
If appropriate, severity can be expressed in monetary terms. Some impacts, such as resource depletion
and environmental pollution, can be expressed as a
monetary value (e.g., environmental taxes, penalties,
and costs of redressing damages). More complicated
valuation methods (e.g., willingness to pay) could help
in considering other impacts. Certainly, one has to
keep in mind that the relationship between environmental impact and economic output contains much
uncertainty. Furthermore, economic valuation of risk
to human life is questionable, and nature also carries
values beyond the scope of monetary valuation. In spite
of it, monetary valuation reveals some estimation of the
importance that society ascribes to different environmental impacts.
Socioeconomic Factors
Socio-economic factors have a somewhat dualistic
nature. On the one hand, they can be regarded as an
additional value estimation applied to certain aspects
and impacts by society as a whole (expressed in establishing legal requirements to keep those impacts within
certain limits) or by specific stakeholders groups.
Thereby, the stakeholders concerns have a direct input
in impacts importance evaluation discussed in the
previous subsection.
On the other hand, socioeconomic concerns include a wide range of issues from the direct influence
on human health (noise, nuisance) to the specific
needs of diverse groups and communities. According
to Glasson (2000), these include economic (e.g.,
employment, housing problems) and sociocultural
(e.g., quality of life, community stress) characteristics.
Principally, the significance dimension highlighted
earlier could be extended to the socioeconomic impacts. Thereby, importance evaluation reflects the
perceived impacts, whereas other dimensions address
actual impacts.
Assessment of socioeconomic impacts is regarded as
an essential part of the EIA process and the corresponding methods are described in concept books
(e.g., Glasson 2000, Chadwick 2000). The simplest
measure is restricted to the coverage of certain issues in
media and to the stakeholders complaints. Some
consequences, associated with environmental impacts
or changes in market position due to the changes in
the attitude of contractors and the public, can be expressed in monetary terms.
Probability
It is set by the ISO 14001 that environmental aspects
should not be limited to normal operational conditions; abnormal and emergency situations must also be
considered. Further, predictions of environmental
consequences of any actions are inherently involved
with certain degree of uncertainty. Consequently, the
evaluation methodology should be basically probabilistic, even if in certain situations the deterministic
approach could be justified as extreme.
Probability of the occurrence of the cause addresses
the release of an agent (substance, energy, or biological stressor). In the most simplistic approach, the
probability of the cause can be divided into two components: human errors and equipment failures. Certain types of event, such as accidental oil spills from
railway tanks, are well documented and numerous data
provide he basis for a statistical approach to probabil-
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Generic Approach
All case companies and concept sources applied the
predefined criteria to all identified environmental aspects. This was done even if the presence of legal
regulation alone was considered a sufficient condition
to classify an aspect significant (Johnston and others
2000, Belmane and others 2002, Whitelaw 2004). None
of the case companies and concept sources indicated
how impacts assessment performed in the framework
of EIA and ERA could be assembled to the EMS
assessment scheme. Here, a tiered decision scheme
could facilitate the evaluation process. With this approach, the evaluation occurs in a series of steps of
increasing complexity.
Tier I
Predefined conditions are applied to screen out
significant aspects at an early stage of the assessment
process. Typically, three criteria could be applied:
1. Violation of legally established emission conditions
or ambient air or water quality standards (in a more
strict approach, the existence of legally set emission
or quality standards could be regarded as a sufficient
condition)
2. Aspects involved in significant environmental impacts identified in the EIA process performed
according to valid legislation
3. Aspects involved in significant effects identified in
risk analysis performed according to valid legislation
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T. P@der
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aspects significance assessments. There are three general types of uncertainty in ERA (Asante-Duah 1998) that
could be extended also to the aspects significance
assessment procedure: (1) parameters uncertainties,
caused by limited or inadequate parameters values; (2)
modeling uncertainties, stemming from models deficiencies used for environmental effects predictions, and
(3) completeness/scenario uncertainties related to what
might have been omitted by effect analysis. In fact, aspects significance assessment rarely uses sophisticated
quantitative impact models and evidence analysis.
Hence, availability and quality of environmental data
and professional judgment limitations seemingly address the main sources of uncertainties in this area.
Missing indirect effects and ill-defined assessment end
points referred to in the section Case Organizations
supports this idea. In any case, one should at least provide an estimate of uncertainty on a scale (low, moderate, high, etc., and corresponding scores) and identify
the most important sources of uncertainty. Quantification of uncertainty refers to the areas in which additional
study could be most effective.
Management Implications
The organization must control its significant environmental aspects. However, measures and priorities
in handling different significant aspects could vary
greatly and the use of the tiered assessment approach
facilitates their systematic handling.
Compliance with legal requirements considered in
Tier I is an imperative and aspects causing (having
potential to cause) such noncompliances are threatening the existence of an organization. Thus, significant environmental aspects screened out in Tier I must
be regarded as of highest priority.
Significant environmental aspects from Tier II address economical effects to the organization. They
influence the health of the organization and, as
extreme, might become existential. Many of them are
related to resource consumption and directly indicate
directions where to save money. Improvements in
those fields might be most cost-effective and, consequently, most attractive to the management.
Significant environmental aspects derived from Tier
III are different and address different management
measures. The first component, risk level, refers to the
management measures directed to decrease the environmental impacts (risks), whereas the second component indicates the need for better communication.
Finally, the high uncertainty score can be reduced if
additional information is obtained, so that more confidence can be put in risk-level estimation. Hence, the
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T. P@der
Conclusion
This article presents evidence that companies
implementing ISO 14001 experience significant difficulties in adequate and reproducible assessment of
their environmental aspects. Some of them are based
on simple, basically intuitive expert risk assessment.
Most companies have adopted a formal assessment
scheme that can sometimes be rather complicated. The
increased intricacy of the evaluation process has not
revealed the expected increase in reproducibility and
objectivity of assessment results. The general weaknesses seem to be (1) ill-defined and unsystematically
adopted assessment criteria and (2) lack of a clear
scheme for adopting the results of EIA and ERA. A
tiered assessment scheme with the more precisely defined criteria presented here could provide a rational
basis for aspects assessment while avoiding the abovementioned drawbacks. At the same time, the conclusions drawn are easy to interpret and they contribute to
systematic handling of environmental issues.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Det Norske Veritas Tallinn Ltd.
and Metrosert Ltd. for making this work possible, as
well as the anonymous auditees for their kind cooperation during ISO 14001 audits.
Literature Cited
Asante-Duah, D. K. 1998. Risk assessment in environmental
management. A guide for managing chemical contamination problems. Wiley, Chichester.
Babakri, K. A., R. Bennett, and M. Franchetti. 2003. Critical
factors for implementing ISO 14001 standard in United
States industrial companies. Journal of Cleaner Production
11:749752.
Belmane I., C. Dalhammar, H. Moora. 2002. Keskkonnajuhtimissu steemi ka siraamat. SEI-Tallinn, IIIEE,
Lund University. Lund (in Estonian).
Whitelaw, K. 2004. ISO 14001 environmental systems handbook. 2nd ed. Elsevier, Oxford.
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