Environmental Aspects and Impacts of your Business

The aspects of your business are any processes which  occur on your premises and the impacts are the associated effects these processes have on the environment, considered in both global and local contexts.

If you have a large site (eg. production plant), this should be zoned off into either process groups or spatial zones.

For each zone, set up a spreadsheet with two tabs, one for aspects and another for corresponding impacts. There will be a lot of desk based study to ascertain every process which incurs an emission or effect on the surroundings.

Once you have identified every aspect in each zone, these need to be broken down into the following:

• Water
• Air
• Waste
• Energy
• Soil
• Other (eg. noise or light pollution).

For each aspect you have identified, you should assess the impacts this has on each of the above areas. For example, one aspect we may have is a cooling system for machinery which circulates water to cool another component. For this aspect, you should identify each impact:

• Water: any overflow which goes to drain may contain substances from process and will contain  biocide and corrosion inhibitor.
• Air: if the biocide is ineffective, there is a possibility of legionella being transmitted through water vapour.
• Waste: changing filters, although not often, incurs waste in the form of recyclable plastics.
• Energy: Electric motors pump water and power propellors to cool water. Their electricity consumption is x kWh per year. Also, water consumption from top-up is 20000 cubic metres per year.
• Soil: any overflow soaks away into ground. Biocides and corrosion inhibitors can enter the ground water and contaminate soil.
• Other: Pumps and fans run 24 hrs per day and typically produce x decibels of sound.

Where possible, you should quantify each impact as is shown in the Energy section. This is important where contamination is concerned. You should have regulations set by governmental bodies regarding the concerntrations of contamination you are "allowed". You must ensure that you know your limits and know whether you are exceeding them, as that is a serious issue.

You should then devise a scoring system with two axes. One which is a score of local significance and another which is a score of global significance. For example, a good idea is to plot an x and y axis. Label your x axis Local Significance and the y axis Global Significance. Put 3 equally spaced ticks on each line and plot 9 squares within the axes. along the x axis, number the ticks 1, 3, 10. Up the y axis, label the ticks 2, 6, 20. Then place the product of each tick in the 9 boxes, so the upper right box will be 200, the lower left box will be 2. An example of this is shown below.
You should select your criteria for significance based on your regulation limit values and global media and press. If something is a hot topic, it must be addressed as it can incur a bad public image.

You should follow this process every two years or so or every time a new procedure or piece of equipment is put into place and if you start finding a lot of "200" scores, think about action plans to reduce these.

These scores should be calculated based on questions you set yourself and should be worked out for each impact of every aspect.

Eventually, you will have created a matrix which assesses every emission, energy use and procedure. Finally, you will need to total up all emissions of the same contaminant to ensure you don't exceed your limits. Therefore, a final "zone" should be considered as an overall view of your premises.

This process is a standard and is required for some businesses to confirm to auditors that they comply with government regulations.