Pursuing a commitment to environmental excellence is an urgent challenge faced by all organisations. The new environmentalism, and the “Greening of Canada”, characterized by greater rigour in factoring environmental costs and benefits into business decisions, puts local managers at the centre of environmental strategies and recognizes the business dimensions of environmental excellence.
EBA is your preferred partner in meeting this challenge. EBA Engineering Consultants Ltd. (EBA) has provided Environmental Management System (EMS) consulting services to the public and private sector for over 10 years. Our auditors are certified environmental auditors. Quality, Environmental and Health and Safety go hand in hand and we understand that integrating these levels of management is the key to success. We can tailor your programs to suit both your operational and stakeholder needs.
We offer the following EMS related services:
- Development and implementation of practical, user-friendly EMS for public and private clients
- Initial environmental review / gap analysis
- EMS audits
- Compliance audits
- Registers of aspects and impacts
- Registers of legal requirements
- Work process mapping
- Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and Work Methods (WM) development
- Staff Training
- Environmental Management Plans (EMP) for projects undertaken across a wide spectrum of industries to guide project design, project construction, and project operation
- Environmental Management Frameworks (EMF)
- Construction and highway site monitoring and development of Environmental Construction Operation Plans (ECO Plans) and/or EMPs
- Development of practical user-friendly systems to guide decision-making with respect to the environment
- Preparation of customer-focused course materials, background documents, and presentations
- Development of EMS workbooks and toolkits
- Half-day seminars and workshops
- Multi-day training programs
- Training of all levels of management over a structured schedule
- Emphasis on hands-on training with practical skills assessment
- Integrated systems approach with other systems such Health and Safety and/or quality programs
An Environmental Management System (EMS) is that part of the organisation’s overall management system that addresses the immediate and long term impacts that an organization's products, services, and operations can have on the environment. It is a continual cycle of planning, implementing, reviewing and improving the processes and activities that the organisation undertakes to achieve its business and environmental objectives.
Implementing an EMS will enable your organisation to:
- Identify the aspects of its activities that produce negative or positive environmental impacts
- Plan to eliminate or reduce its negative impacts and enhance its positive ones
- Measure the effectiveness of the plans to achieve its desired objectives and targets
- Review progress to-date, identify any new or changed impacts, and modify plans to accommodate changing circumstances or to improve progress
There are a number of legal, business and social drivers why an organisation would implement an EMS:
- Demonstrate due
diligence in the event of prosecution or litigation
- in the event of an environmental incident, even private corporations must consider their standard of performance and the avoidance of prosecution - Demonstrate compliance
with applicable laws and regulations
– reduce the risk of future liability through better adaptability to new legal regulatory and other issues - Move toward Sustainability
- with EBA's assistance, companies can search out new, innovative and more economical opportunities to achieve sustainability and maintain a high level of compliance with applicable laws and regulations - Achieve Cost
Savings
– reduce operational costs - Enter New and
Sustained Markets
– increase customer trust, loyalty, and marketing potential and increase or allow access to new markets - Enhance Reputation
– enhance your reputation by developing and publicizing key environmental indicators - Gain a competitive
advantage
– being certified to ISO 14001 may provide your organisation with a competitive advantage
- Increase shareholder confidence
- Improve overall environmental performance
- Eliminate, or at least minimize environmental incidents
- Improve response in case of an environmental incident
- Improve efficiency through reduced resource use and waste generation
- Improve relations with surrounding communities, regulatory authorities, environmental interest groups, employees and other stakeholders and interested parties
- Reduce environmental risks assessed by insurance and lending institutions
- Increase employee involvement, health and productivity
- Integrates effectively and seamlessly with existing management systems
- Supports continuous improvement
- Is comprehensive but will not be viewed as overly prescriptive or cumbersome
- Involves built-in flexibility to respond to changing external conditions
- Is simple and easily communicated to staff, stakeholders and external parties
- Focuses on value
- Is sensitive to the needs of the business
- Is a process not a product
In addition to the technical expertise normally required for EBA’s Environmental Management related services, in-house specialists in disciplines such as contaminated sites, environmental geophysics, health and safety, hazardous building materials, indoor air quality, geotechnical engineering, GeoExchange, and contaminant hydrogeology are also resources to your team, if warranted and include:
