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Sustainability

Sustainability

Environmental Management

How we deal with the potential positive and negative impacts to the physical environment around us.

Having a Process to Manage Environmental Impacts is Key

Almost everything we do has an impact on the environment. Whether it’s clearing vegetation during project groundworks, or purchasing a new vehicle, the decisions we make have a wide range of impacts on the environment.

Environmental management is the framework and processes that we put in place to understand what is causing an impact on the environment from what we do (the aspects, such as driving vehicles, extracting materials), and what the impacts to the environment are as a consequence: on the soil, air, water, atmosphere and biodiversity. It is then about putting plans in place to reduce or eliminate the negative, and maximise the positive impacts.

Common examples of environmental management might be to have systems in place to control and prevent pollution, such as effluents getting into a river course, or the implementation of a biodiversity programme to ensure that the flora and fauna of an area is enhanced once a project has been completed.

Often the need for a robust environmental management system is driven by statutory requirements, such as air quality and water effluent limits, but more forward-thinking organisations are increasingly setting the bar higher.

Key environmental management terms

  • Environmental aspect – An element of an organisation’s activities, products or services that interacts or can interact with the environment
  • Environmental impact – A change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organisation’s environmental aspects

Environmental Management in FM

This short animated film illustrates why environmental management is a key issue, and outline what you can do to achieve effective environmental management within the existing built environment.

Environmental Management in FM – Sustainability Short

Many organisations have an Environmental Management System (EMS) for their whole company but they may also be put in place to set out what a project’s environmental impacts are and how they should be mitigated.

The most common framework for an EMS is ISO 14001, the internationally accepted and well-established ISO Standard for environmental management.  It encourages a philosophy of continual improvement – the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle which many other ISO Standards such as ISO 9001 use too.

The principles of environmental management are also included in the prominent sustainability assessment schemes in the UK notably BREEAM and CEEQUAL. And organisations such as CIRIA provide Environmental Good Practice on Site Guidance, which can help to identify better site environmental practice.

Learn more

Latest Environmental Management Resources

Here are a selection of featured environmental management resources. To view more, please visit our full resource library.

Environmental Management
Environmental Management
Environmental Management
Environmental Management
Environmental Management
Environmental Management
Waste and Resource Efficiency
Environmental Management

Topics related to Environmental Management

To help our members to develop a holistic understanding of the impacts relevant to environmental management, we offer a suite of resources on the following key topics:

Topic
Air Quality

The quality of the air we all breathe often gets…

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Topic
Waste and Resource Efficiency

Changing the mindset from 'waste' to 'resources' and improving efficiency…

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Topic
Materials

The built environment industry can reduce the negative impacts of…

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Topic
Energy and Carbon

Climate change is the biggest issue of our time and…

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Topic
Sustainability Strategy

Sustainable development requires a holistic consideration of environmental, social and…

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Topic
Water

Monitoring and addressing water consumption and use helps to reduce…

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