QMS & EMS London

Environmental matters need to be better integrated into overall corporate strategies, an analysis of annual reports of FTSE 350 companies has found. Although environmental factors were identified as principal business risks by 41% of reports studied, only 27% of companies reflected these in their key performance indicators (KPIs), which are used by management to monitor the company’s progress, according to a report of the findings.  The analysis was carried out by the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB), a consortium of international NGOs and businesses working to make reporting of environmental risk and impacts mainstream.

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) and the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute (GHGMI) held a panel discussion on the sidelines of the UNFCCC talks in Paris. Tom Bauman, co-founder of the GHGMI and chair of a technical committee working on climate change mitigation and adaptation standards at the ISO, said that it had received a large number of requests over the past 18 months for new climate change standards.  Nick Blyth, policy and practice lead at IEMA, said that the demand for new standards was driven partly by a general increase in awareness of the impacts of climate change as well as the publication of the revised ISO 14001 environmental management standard. The revised 14001: 2015 standard requires organisations to consider the impact of the environment, including climate change, on their operations as well as their impact on the environment. “The revised ISO 14001 should introduce more people to climate change, which will then lead them into the...

More than three-quarters of the EU's important natural habitats are classified as "unfavourable", with many species threatened with extinction, according to the European commission. The findings came in the commission's mid-term review of the EU biodiversity strategy , which aims to halt biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystem services by 2020. Much more needs to be done on the ground to translate policy into action, the commission said. It wants biodiversity to be integrated into policies on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, regional development and trade.

Computers were meant to make our lives easier. We now have access to environmental surveys, energy use predictions, ESOS (energy savings opportunity scheme) audits, carbon reporting data, waste management records and demolition surveys on the computer rather than on paper. This should mean that we can reach the information we need at the click of a button. However, although the 30-year-old operations manual, safely stored in its ring binder, still exists in some organisations, it is often a struggle to find those electronic files that were emailed over the previous year. And, if another employee edits the Excel file in which you were compiling your energy stats, how can you be sure which version contains the most up-to-date information?

More than six million tonnes of electronic waste discarded in the EU did not end up in official collection and recycling systems, according to a two-year investigation coordinated by Interpol. Publishing its report today, the Countering WEEE Illegal Trade (CWIT) project found that 65% of the EU’s 6.15 million tonnes of e-waste was exported; recycled under non-compliant conditions in Europe (3.15 million tonnes); scavenged for valuable parts (750,000 tonnes); or was thrown in waste bins (750,000 tonnes).

This article explores the role of environmental impact assessments (EIAs) in complex urban sites, in particular, how an ES can ensure that local planning authorities are fully aware of likely effects and can balance those against other considerations.  Nexus Planning has recently secured approval for one of the largest regeneration projects in the London borough of Haringey, at St Ann’s Hospital. The project, for Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust, will deliver 470 new homes, a shop, and new healthcare facilities, including a mental health inpatient building on an 11 hectare site.

Serious pollution incidents dropped by 11% in 2014 compared to 2013, according to the latest data from the Environment Agency. The statistics reveal that there were 614 serious pollution incidents in 2014, down from 688 in 2013. However, the total is still higher than those recorded in 2012, said the regulator. Activities permitted under the environmental permitting regulations saw a 23% drop in incidents, from 323 in 2013 to 249 in 2014. Over three-quarters of these incidents (79%) affected air quality, the agency said, with odour, smoke, dust and noise being the main issues. 

The number of laws and policies to limit climate change has nearly doubled since the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009, according to new research. The findings came in a study from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment . It covers 98 countries and the 28 member states of the EU, which together are responsible for 93% of global emissions.  At the end of 2014, these countries had implemented a total 804 climate laws and policies, up from 426 in 2009. In 1997, when the Kyoto protocol was agreed, these countries had just 54 climate laws and policies between them, the researchers said.

A smartphone uses nearly 13,000 litres of water and 18 square metres of land, the study found, with two fifths due to pollution during manufacturing and assembly. A pair of leather boots requires 14,500 litres of water, but this rises to 25,000 litres where leather tanneries dump untreated chemicals into the environment, according to the report. A 100g bar of chocolate uses 2.5m² of land and 1,400 litres of water, while a t-shirt requires four litres of water and just over 4m² of land, the research revealed.

Organisations need to "futureproof" their operations against changes in demographics, climate change, resources and technology, according to business leaders. Business in the Community (BitC) has launched a project to help organisations identify potential problems arising from global megatrends and make plans to avoid them. As part of the project, BitC will provide mentoring and access to sustainability experts.

Oceans need urgent protection to stem the erosion of their resources, which are worth around $24 trillion, WWF warned last week. In a report produced with the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and the Boston Consulting Group, the charity highlighted the value of oceans, which includes direct outputs from fishing and aquaculture, tourism, education, trade and transport as well as other benefits, such as carbon sequestration. According to WWF, goods and services from oceans are worth US$2.5 trillion a year, ranking it just below the UK in terms of economic value. Neglecting this asset could in some ways be likened to not investing in a fund that yielded a 10% return, it says.

Jo Baker, senior environmental manager and Emma Robinson, associate director at Terence O'Rourke consider the best timing for EIA screening to take place. EIA screening, the procedure used to determine whether a proposed project is likely to have significant effects on the environment, is traditionally considered an exercise to be completed early on in the development of a project. Indeed, it is often the first involvement an EIA practitioner has in a scheme.  The online planning practice guidance from the communities department (DCLG) states: “EIA screening should normally take place at an early stage in the design of the project. However, it can also occur after a planning application has been made or even after an appeal has been made.” 

British Prime Minister David Cameron's government announced the creation of the world’s largest contiguous ocean reserve on Wednesday, setting aside 322,000 square miles (830,000 square kilometres) around the remote Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific for special protection. The new reserve is nearly three and a half times bigger than the landmass of the United Kingdom—larger than the state of California—and is home to a stunning array of sharks, fish, corals, and other marine life, says Enric Sala, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence who led a five-week Pristine Seas expedition to the island group in March 2012 that helped establish a scientific case for the reserve.

Worldwide investment in renewables surged 17% to $270 billion in 2014, bringing the total invested in renewable energy to $2 trillion over the past 10 years, according to UNEP. The UN environment programme’s latest annual report, Global trends in renewable energy investment, says record investments in offshore wind projects across Europe, combined with major expansion of solar installations in China and Japan contributed most to the increased capacity in 2014 and helped reverse a two-year decline in investment.

The EU should make better use of the ecodesign Directive to improve resource efficiency, according to campaigning NGO, the European Environment Bureau (EEB). The directive is expected to deliver over 40% of the EU’s energy efficiency target by 2020 by setting limits on the amount of power that electrical and electronic equipment can consume, says the EEB. 

Ecosystem services (ES) are being increasingly addressed in international impact assessments, particularly for major infrastructure and extractive industry projects. This follows the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) inclusion of ES criteria in the 2012 versions of its performance standards, which are widely applied by development finance institutions and Equator Principles adherents to their funding clients. Consequently, any project which has to meet the environmental and social standards of participating financial institutions to secure funding must address ES requirements.

Investigating the number of documents typically included in applications for major infrastructure projects. Major infrastructure projects are an important part of the political agenda, demonstrated by the government’s recent commitment to Hornsea Project One (part of a 4GW offshore wind farm) and Hinkley C, which will be the first new nuclear power station in the UK for a generation. Developers of these nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) are required by the Planning Act 2008 to submit a Development Consent Order (DCO) application to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS). A total of 32 NSIPs have been determined since this new regime became effective in October 2009 (31 of which were granted consent and one was refused). A further 22 projects are currently going through the examination process and 50 are at the initial pre-application stage.

The clause in 14001: 2015 to understand the organisation and its context will require high-level understanding of the important internal and external issues that can affect an organisation’s environmental management system (EMS). A workshop approach to increase cross-functional understanding and input from across the organisation would be one way to ensure this requirement helps improve the effectiveness of the EMS. But an EMS tends to be the exclusive domain of only one or two people, disconnecting it from the rest of the business and, with the exception of environmental issues, what is happening in the outside world. As a result, the system often lacks exposure to “big picture issues”, which have the potential to seriously affect, negatively or positively, the ongoing success of the EMS and the business itself. Examples of such issues include a possible change in government, a changing workforce or future restrictions on accessing critical substances. Such issues coul...

Incorporating natural features in the built environment offers business opportunities, according to a report by the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC). Street trees, roof gardens, parks and woodlands can potentially increase the value of land and property, the report states. It also claims that natural cooling from living walls and roofs can cut the cost of running air conditioning equipment. Conversely, a failure to incorporate green infrastructure in developments brings risks for developers such as delay or refusal of planning permission. If buildings with green infrastructure are built, occupiers may be at risk of local flooding, UKGBC warns. 

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) are well-established tools for assessing environmental impacts from developments. So too are sustainability assessments (SA) for local plans in the UK. However, do they go far enough, given what we now know about the many values that natural systems confer on humanity? Importantly, do they omit to address the many benefits that flow from protected or restored natural systems and processes, unintentionally framing “nature” as a constraint on legitimate economic and social development rather than the most fundamental resource assuring it?