What is an EMS?

An Environmental Management System (EMS) assists an organization to:

Integrate environmental considerations into day-to-day operations.
Improve overall environmental performance and compliance.
Operate more efficiently and reduce costs.
Reduce pollution generation.
Demonstrate improved performance to outsiders, including regulatory agencies and customers.

EMS is a set of problem-identification and problem-solving tools that is part of an organization's overall management system. An EMS:

Includes strategic planning, organizational structure, and implementation of an environmental policy as an integrated part of the business enterprise.
Can be implemented in an organization in many different ways, depending on the organization's activities and needs.
Can be adopted by organizations of all sizes and types, including government agencies and small businesses.
Does not impose new technical requirements, nor is it a substitute for existing regulatory standards.
Should be tailored to an organization's processes and goals.
Should involve everyone in the organization to understand, reduce, and manage the environmental impacts of daily activities with greater efficiency and control.
Encourages an organization to continuously improve its environmental performance.

An EMS follows a repeating cycle (see figure) and usually reflects the following phases by the organization:

This figure shows the steps in the EMS continuous improvement cycle:

The most commonly used framework for an EMS is the one developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for the ISO 14001 standard.

Established in 1996, this framework is the official international EMS standard.
ISO 14001 was initially used in the private sector, principally by industrial facilities.
EPA participated in the development of ISO 14001 and recognized its potential applicability to a wide variety of public sector activities.
Although optional and voluntary, once an EMS is developed and implemented, some organizations undergo a third party audit to obtain ISO 14001 certification.
The ISO standard includes 17 steps for EMS development.

Before getting started on EMS development, an organization should:

Resources - Identify needed and available resources for external training, support, and assistance either through a consulting firm or nonprofit technical assistance provider.
Management integration - Review existing management systems to determine how an EMS may fit. Don't reinvent the wheel.
Mentoring - Consider contacting similar public organizations which have completed EMSs for input regarding the process and options for obtaining training and technical assistance during the EMS development process.
Fenceline - Determine the area in which it intends to implement its EMS (sometimes called the "fenceline"). The EMS fenceline may encompass all operations at a particular facility or selected processes of one or more facilities (e.g., biosolids management, security) or a department or division within the organization.
Phase-in - Recognize that a complete EMS need not be developed all at once - it can be introduced step by step.
Team - Identify an EMS "champion" and members of an EMS core team. To assure success, it is important for the EMS team to communicate regularly with and involve other employees in the organization

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.