Alcumus Safe Contractor
Alcumus Safe Contractor
This Guidance Note gives practical information about creating an environmental policy.
A policy template has been included in Appendix 1. You may use the template to construct your own environmental policy document. The policy you develop should be relevant to the nature and scale of your activities and set out the responsibilities for environmental management throughout your company. You must ensure that all references to Alcumus SafeContractor Accreditation have been removed and that the final document is clearly incorporated into your existing management system and company documentation.
An environmental policy is a short statement which lays out your company’s attitude towards the environment. It should recognise that your business impacts upon the environment both through local operations and, more broadly, in terms of raw materials usage, energy usage and discharges. It should set realistic and achievable targets for improvement that are relevant to your company’s activities and practices.
Regardless of a company’s shape, size and business sector, all companies face an ever increasing number of challenges relating to their environmental performance.
There is no specific legal requirement for an environmental policy, although there is a vast range of environmental legislation which may affect your company (with differing legislation in differing parts of the UK) and an environmental policy is the best way of demonstrating that your company has a clear intent to comply with this legislation.
In order to achieve this, the policy should include:
Your environmental policy should be a live management resource and the lynchpin of your company environmental management system (EMS). The policy should be reviewed and audited annually with a target towards continuous improvement.
In addition to the environmental policy, an environmental management system should include:
You need to create an Environmental Aspect Register which includes:
Remember that some environmental aspects may be influenced by people and organisations outside your own company. For example, packaging sent by your suppliers may become part of your own waste stream.
Your EMS needs to include the procedures your company follows in order to address the environmental aspects both in normal and ‘abnormal’ conditions such as emergencies.
Such procedures include:
Please note: the above is not an exhaustive list.
The procedures should be supported with documents which ensure their implementation such as:
A log of these documents should be contained within a Document Index in your company EMS.
This includes:
Objectives and targets are established to monitor, control and reduce significant environmental aspects.
Each target may be split into a series of tasks within a management programme and progress should be tracked in a simple table.
Monitoring and measurement data can be used to demonstrate progress and can be as simple as taking regular meter readings and comparing against the previous years’ benchmark or consumption prior to and after a specific environmental campaign (e.g. energy reductions following a ‘switch-off’ campaign).
This is essential to keep the EMS functioning and set on achieving its objectives, helps maintain commitment, and raise issues with progress.
It is essential that you involve staff with the EMS and communicate any changes to them.
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