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Can’t See the Wood for the Trees?
A recent EMS audit of an engineering product company drew my attention to the need for an ISO 14001 certification auditor to stand back from the fine detail of an EMS and see the wider perspective of what an EMS is supposed to do. Findings from some of their internal HSEQ audits revealed items such as backup torque wrenches being outdated with their calibration, or some low-risk environmental purchasing procedure being at the incorrect revision. Trivialisation immediately came to mind.
The company in question for this visit had undergone an initial assessment to ISO 14001 several years ago with another certification body, and as the number of significant environmental issues had been whittled down, there seemed to be little scope for further improvement. However, on closer inspection, the register did show that general waste had worked it’s way up the priority list and now was sitting near the top.
Members of the management team were interviewed as part of the audit, and it was revealed that the recent EMS Review presented information on various items such as energy monitoring, funding for heat recovery and some other issues relating to procurement policy. However, waste minimisation itself was not considered at all (probably because a number of earlier initiatives to research opportunities relating to waste minimisation and recycling had been lost in the mists of time).
A large amount of plastic strapping was regularly binned, significant quantities of cardboard were dumped in skips and about 200,000 small plastic bags per year were used to transport fasteners from one part of the production line to the next. They were then disposed into bins, eventually finding their way into the large compactor. My impression was that the EMS was simply not working because the company was unknowingly struggling to translate the results of the aspect evaluation into meaningful objectives and programmes. A literal ‘waste of effort’.
The potential for recycling cardboard, separating out the plastic strapping at source and making sure that metal components were not able to contaminate the plastic waste provided a fresh approach to an old problem. The solution required a small research programme followed up by a change to the entrenched waste disposal procedure.
The ISO 14001 certification process provides an excellent opportunity for a independent auditor to look over the system and to verify that significant areas from an environmental perspective have been addressed as part of the EMS. Management representatives are sometimes unable to recognise an opportunity, often because they have many different jobs to perform, sometimes they are simply too close to the action. Sometimes they are not given the ‘clout’ needed to make senior management sit-up and take notice.
By focusing attention on the need for a coherent strategy and action plan to address the waste stream, the company regained it’s enthusiasm for waste minimisation and as a result hope to reduce waste costs by at least £10,000 per year and provide a solid platform for recycling and reuse of resources in the future.
John Marsden (FIEMA)
info@marsden-international.com
John is an independent management system auditor who works for a number of international certification bodies.
