Just the facts:  Quality Systems Consulting Group (QSC) spends a portion of its profit on helping the environment. One way we do this is we give energy efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) to our neighbors, friends, and other contacts. As of February 4, 2009 we have given away over 2,500 lamps. What does this mean to the environment? Read below:

Installing a single CFL can prevent 450 lbs. of greenhouse gases from reaching the air, which translates to 110 lbs. of coal not being burned in power plants, and fewer mercury emissions. That means Quality Systems Consulting Group has prevented over 1 million pounds of greenhouse gases from entering our air! 

What is a "significant environmental aspect"?

Answer: There are many environmental aspects that an organization could consider and work toward improving. However, some have a greater level of negative impacts to the environment than others, so it is important to assess these aspects to determine which ones are "significant". That way the significant aspects that could have significant impacts on the environment can be addressed and improved first, before spending time and resources on, relatively speaking,insignificant aspects.

To determine significant versus insignificant aspects, set up your criteria such as Severity, Probability, Emergency Manageability, Regulatory Requirement (Yes/No), Other Requirement (Yes/No), etc. and use a sliding scale such as 1 for low, 3 for medium and 5 for high. Then after assigning numbers to the criterion, multiply and you have your significance score.

 

Following ISO 14001 allows for the easy evaluation of all aspects; health, safety, regulatory, and environmental.  Therefore you then can easily make informed decisions.

Following the ISO 14001 standard's framework helps to standardize the methods used to assess risk and resource efficiency.  It then becomes easier to compare “apples to apples.”  There may be a few judgement calls remaining, but having a frame of reference to work within ensures that the standards used to make those calls are constant and logical.