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From Aspects to Impacts

Define environmental impacts, examples from facility operations, aspects register, EMS implementation, and strategies to identify and document impacts for sustainability objectives.

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From Aspects to Impacts

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  1. From Aspects to Impacts EPA Regions 9 & 10 and The Federal Network for Sustainability

  2. Objectives After this discussion, you should be able to: • Define an environmental impact • Give examples of impacts from your facility

  3. Overview • Definition • Examples • Building an Inventory

  4. Definition An environmental impact is a change to the environment, either adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organization’s activities, products, or services.

  5. Another Definition The environment is the surroundings in which an organization operates: including air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans and their interactions. (scale goes from within an organization to the global system)

  6. Environmental Impacts • Measurable • Regulated or below regulatory thresholds • Removed from source • Some are focus of current environmental programs • Others – no current program

  7. Vehicles emit exhaust Water leaks Fueling spills occur Containers not closed Noise from engine runup Lights, computers left on at night Paper bleached w/ Cl Bicycles don’t emit exhaust Sulfur oxides released Water resource depleted Stormwater contaminated Chemical may be spilled Hearing, sleep impaired Increased CO2, coal-fired power plant emissions Dioxins created in W/W Air pollution reduced Examples of Aspects & Impacts ASPECTSIMPACTS

  8. National Air Pollutant Emissions:1970 to 1998

  9. U.S. Water Withdrawals: 1940 to 1995

  10. MSW Generation and Recovery:1980 to 1999

  11. MSW Generation and RecoveryPer Capita: 1980 to 1999

  12. U.S. Toxic Chemical Releases:1988 to 1999

  13. U.S. Pesticide Usage for Agriculture: 1990 to 1997

  14. U.S. Energy Consumption:1960 to 1999

  15. EMS and Impacts • Use the aspects register to identify impacts • Environmental policy dictates which aspects are significant • EMS addresses significant aspects • Document your process for identifying aspects and impacts – look at your NEPA or PPOA process

  16. Impacts from Your Facility • Prepare summary of environmental impacts • Graphs make large amounts of data easy to understand • Document where the data came from • Use to help build support for EMS • If you don’t have the data, start collecting!

  17. Summary • Identification of environmental aspects and impacts is a key part of an EMS • Aspects and impacts arise from activities, products, and services • An EMS includes procedures for identification and updating of aspects and impacts

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