What’s in your fence-line?
You’re responsible for all environmental impacts of your business, even if you don’t know about it.
I’m taking a class offered by the EPA on how to create an Environmental Management System (EMS), which is basically a fancy way of saying “a list of potentially environmentally harmful activities and documented procedures on how to manage them”. I’ve learned that when creating an EMS the first thing you have to do is decide what your scope is. What are you responsible for? Where is your “fence-line”?
Even if you don’t plan to have an EMS, it’s a good idea to know what land, water, and air you’re responsible for and how your business practices affect it. If you have water runoff from your facility, air emissions, and/or waste disposal, it’s important that you are aware of it and manage its impact on the environment.
Simply evaluating your processes and their potential environmental impacts is a good first step, but that’s not thorough enough. It’s important to physically walk your facility and everything within your fence-line to identify existing or potential issues and discover things you didn’t know that you didn’t know. Remember, you are still responsible for these environmental aspects even if you don’t know about them.
Sound like a daunting task? Call us to tap into our free services!
#1 from Tom Buddenbohn on June 28, 2009
We walked our “fence line” with you and came away with some excellent ideas to improve our “environment” and our impact on our environment. My team I and appreciate your visit and knowledge.