In order to comply with laws and regulations that apply to your organization,
you must first know what the rules are and how they affect what you do. As discussed earlier,
compliance with legal requirements is one of the "three pillars" upon which your environmental
policy should be based. The potential costs of non-compliance (possible damage to the environment,
revenue loss and impact on public image, for example) can be very high.
Thus, an effective EMS should includes processes to:
Identify and communicate applicable legal and other requirements
Ensure that these requirements are factored into the organization's
New or revised legal requirements might require modification of your environmental objectives or other
EMS elements. By anticipating new requirements and making changes to your operations, you might avoid
some future compliance obligations and their costs.
Your EMS should include a procedure for identifying, having access to and analyzing applicable legal
and other requirements. "Other requirements" might include industry codes of practice or similar
requirements to which your organization might subscribe.
Identifying applicable regulations, interpreting them, and determining their impacts on your operations
can be a time-consuming task. Fortunately, there are many methods for obtaining information about
applicable laws or regulations. These methods include:
Commercial services (with updates offered on-line, on CD-ROM or in paper
form)
Regulatory agencies (federal, state and local)
Trade groups / associations
The Internet (see USEPA web site at www.epa.gov)
Public libraries
Seminars and courses
Newsletters / magazines
Consultants and attorneys
Customers, vendors and other companies
Once applicable requirements have been identified and analyzed for potential impacts, communicate
these requirements (and plans for complying with them) to employees, on-site contractors and others,
as needed. Communicating "other applicable requirements" (as well as their impacts on the organization)
is an important but often overlooked step. Keep in mind that different people may have different
information needs.
As with many EMS elements, this is not a "one time" activity. Since legal and other requirements change
over time, your process should ensure that you are working with up-to-date information.
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Step: 3 of 17 |
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