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Environmental Management Systems
National EMS Links
Other EMS Links
EPA Region 5 is promoting and encouraging the use of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) for public and private sector facilities as a vehicle to provide compliance with legal and other requirements, continuous improvement and efficiency in operations and to prevent polution. We hope to be an example for others and to assist them in developing their own EMS by offering for their use all or any part of the information on this website. EPA Region 5's EMS Policy and many other documents are accessible from our websites
This website contains general information on EMS as well as links to other websites with specific information on implementing a multi-site EMS in both an office setting in our Chicago office (Metcalfe Building) and also in a lab setting in our Chicago Regional Laboratory.
The PDCA Cycle
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- Phase 1 - Planning
The organization identifies how its operations might harm the environment and develops methods to reduce the harm. - Phase 2 - Doing
The organizations implements these methods to reduce harm and operates them for a designated time period. - Phase 3 - Checking
The organization assesses whether the methods that it is operating to reduce environmental harm and ensure regulatory compliance are proving to be effective. - Phase 4 - Acting
The organization determines what changes are necessary based on the performance assessment of the methods (see Phase 3) designed to reduce environmental harm. Output from this phase is fed back into Phase 1 Planning.
Note: A printed copy of this page is an uncontrolled EMS document. The current version of this document can be found only on the EMS web site.