An Environmental Management System (EMS) is a framework developed by an organization to help improve its environmental performance by taking environmental considerations into account when making decisions and managing risks. The development and implementation of an EMS also helps to ensure departments and agencies meet legislation and policy objectives, and demonstrate due diligence.
Government of Canada departments and agencies must develop an EMS. Federal departments have been mandated by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development (CESD) to model their EMS after the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14000 series of environmental standards, which include ISO 14001 and ISO 14004, describing the essential elements of an EMS. In his 1999 report, the CESD stated the ISO 14001 standard will be a benchmark used to evaluate federal departments/agencies' environmental management systems. However, registration with ISO is not a requirement.
The 28 Government of Canada departments and agencies targeted by the SDGO initiative manage close to 40,000 leased and owned facilities. It is a priority that they develop and implement an EMS for all of their owned facilities to ensure an environmentally-responsible management of these buildings. An EMS should be developed and implemented in leased facilities as well. In the case of leased facilities, the aspects of energy, water and waste are usually reported by the owner.
Identifying your facility's environmental aspects is part of the process of developing an EMS. Environment Canada's Environmental Management Systems, for example, focuses on 12 aspects. The aspects managed at the facility level (bottom up) include air emissions, energy, halocarbons, hazardous materials, land use, solid waste, spills, storage tanks and water. The remaining aspects - contaminated sites, fleet management and green procurement - are managed by the department and communicated to the facilities (top-down).
