ISO 14001 controllers

So, you want to perform an environmental initial assessment in your lab in order to implement control.

Let us start with an example:

You need to determine all aspects and impacts under normal, abnormal and periodical situations. Then you need to evaluate those impacts and determine what kind of control or improvement you need in place, to improve your relationship with the environment.

You can start by getting a plant of your lab. Make several copies and use each copy for a specific environmental aspect. Please check this article to get a starting point about the main environmental aspects - Catalogue of environmental aspects - https://advisera.com/14001academy/blog/2019/08/27/key-iso-14001-benefits-to-customers/nowledgebase/catalogue-of-environmental-aspects/

Let us consider, as an example, that you are with your lab plant for “hazardous chemical waste” (both in chemical form and materials contaminated with chemicals such as filters from a vent hood): Gather a team from the lab and go to each location and write, draw, comment in your lab plant all situations, all activities, where hazardous chemical wastes can be generated. You can repeat this procedure for every environmental aspects.

Then, you can organize all that information into a table and write the environmental impacts. Define an evaluation scheme to determine which aspects/impacts are critical or not. Please check these articles - 4 steps in identification and evaluation of environmental aspects - https://advisera.com/14001academy/knowledgebase/4-steps-in-identification-and-evaluation-of-environmental-aspects/ and - What makes an environmental aspect significant in ISO 14001? - https://advisera.com/14001academy/blog/2015/03/09/what-makes-environmental-aspect-significant-in-iso-14001/ to help design that evaluation scheme.

For each critical environmental aspect/impact you can design one or more actions. For example:

• Invest in buying a pallet spill to minimize leaking impacts;
• Invest in training, procedures and/or simulations to improve practices or minimize wrong practices
• Decide to eliminate an activity, for example some organizations decide to no longer paint and subcontract that activity
• Decide to establish control procedures – frequently checking appearance or making measurements

Please consider these sources of information:

• Article - Environmental aspect identification and classification - https://advisera.com/14001academy/blog/2019/08/27/key-iso-14001-benefits-to-customers/nowledgebase/environmental-aspect-identification-and-classification/
• Free webinar - ISO 14001: Identification and evaluation of environmental aspects - https://advisera.com/14001academy/webinar/iso-14001-identification-and-evaluation-of-environmental-aspects-free-webinar-on-demand/
• Enroll for free in this course – ISO 14001:2015 Foundations Course - https://advisera.com/training/iso-14001-internal-auditor-course/
• Book – The ISO 14001:2015 Companion - https://advisera.com/books/the-iso-14001-2015-companion/