Environmental Management System

Environmental management system (EMS) refers to the management of an organization's environmental programs in a comprehensive, systematic, planned and documented manner. It includes the organizational structure, planning and resources for developing, implementing and maintaining policy for environmental protection... EMS is "a system and database which integrates procedures and processes for training of personnel, monitoring, summarizing, and reporting of specialized environmental performance information to internal and external stakeholders of a firm." The goals of EMS are to increase compliance and reduce waste. Finally, EMS is typically reported using International Organization of Standards (ISO) 14001 to help understand the EMS process. An Environmental Management System (EMS) provides a practical framework for organizations to manage potential and existing environmental risks.  It easily integrates into our business management structure to control the impacts that your activities, operations, products and services have on the environment. According to the international standard, ISO 14001, an Environmental Management System (EMS) is “the part of the overall management system that includes organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes, and resources for developing, implementing, achieving, reviewing and maintaining the environmental policy.” While this is a more complex definition than previously provided, it still implies the same cycle of “Plan, Do, Check, Feedback.” The ISO 14001 EMS standard consists of five sections, Environmental Policy, Planning, Implementation & Operations, Checking and Corrective Action, and Management Review.