Determining the Significant Aspects

1. Determining the Significant Aspects EPA Regions 9 & 10 and The Federal Network for Sustainability

2. Objectives After this discussion, you should : • Describe the importance of significant environmental aspects for your EMS. • Describe factors to consider in evaluating the significance of environmental aspects and impacts.

3. Overview • Definition • EMS Requirements • Risk Assessment • Decision Matrices

4. Definition • A significant environmental aspect is an environmental aspect that has or can have a significant environmental impact. • Significance could be tied to: • Environmental concerns • Natural resource concerns • Regulatory or legal exposure • Business or mission concerns • Concerns of interested parties

5. EMS Requirements • ISO 14001 uses “significant” aspects and impacts as the basis for developing objectives and preparing programs. • The facility determines which aspects and impacts are “significant.” • The EMS must address all significant aspects.

6. Considerations for Determining Significance • Legal and other requirement • Toxicity • Consequence / Magnitude • Risk / Likelihood • Sustainable • Others

7. Several Methods for Determining Significance • Risk Assessment • Decision Matrices • Significance Set by Management

8. Risk Assessment • Risk assessment is a tool used by managers to provide information for decision making. • Risk assessment may be formal or informal, but it is always there.

9. Risk Management • Risk management addresses unacceptable risk. • Residual risk is the unidentified risk plus any acceptable, identified risk remaining after risk management.

10. Characterizing Risk • Exposure - How big of a problem is it? • Global, regional, local? • Severity - How bad will it get? • Probability - How likely is it to occur? • Daily, weekly, monthly, annually, in emergencies, only when a certain event happens, when a new project starts?

11. Risk Assessment • Estimate exposure, severity, and probability for each aspect • Prepare relative rank for each aspect • Compare ranking to determine significance

12. Aspect Exposure Severity Probability Total Vehicle exhaust 4 2 3 24 Hazardous waste 1 4 2 8 Food waste 3 1 2 6 Risk Assessment Example Not real data. Scale of 1 to 5 used with 1 being low and 5 high. Numbers were multiplied to give totals. No weighting factors used.

13. Decision Matrices • A decision matrix is a tool used to quantify a risk assessment • Identify key criteria • Determine relative ranking • Evaluate significance

14. Key Criteria for Significance • Environmental impact • Health & safety • Regulatory or Executive Order requirement • Cost • Mission impact • Environmental policy commitments • Community impact

15. Decision Matrix Example Aspect Env.Imp H&S Cost of Mission Comm. Total Change Vehicle 3 2 - 1 1 3 8 exhaust Hazardous 4 3 - 2 2 2 9 waste Food 1 1 - 1 1 1 3 waste National data. Scale of 1 to 5 used with 1 being low and 5 high. Numbers were added to give totals. No weighting factors used.

16. Significance May Be Defined by Management • Environmental Goals • Management Priorities

17. Risk Assessment and Decision Matrices are only suggestions Refer to your agency’s risk management procedures Establish a procedure and stick with it Make a list of significant aspects and the impacts associated with them Determining Significance

18. Where Do Significant Aspects Fit in Your EMS? • EMS manages your significant aspects, impacts • Objectives and targets for your significant aspects shall be considered • Employees need to be aware of significant environmental aspects of their jobs • Organizations shall consider processes for external communication of significant aspects and document decision • Organization shall have procedures to monitor operations & activities that can have signif. impact(s)

19. Summary • Significant aspects are defined based on facility-specific criteria • A formal procedure is used to evaluate significance • Preparing a list of significant aspects is a big part of an EMS

20. Exercise 4: Determining significant Aspects Use reproducible methodology; e.g., rank using a formula containing factors the organization considers important • Potential factors • severity • probability/frequency • risk (environmental/ • health/financial) • toxicity • external concerns • ability to control/ • influence/investigate • duration • regulatory concern

21. Examples of Factor Ratings • Severity • 5 Catastrophic • 4 High • 3 Moderate • 2 Low • 1 Slight • 0 Positive Impact • Regulatory Importance • 5 Current violation • 4 Non-compliance, past 3 yrs • 3 Non-compliance, past 5 yrs • 2 In compliance • 1 Below regulatory cut-off • 0 Unregulated

22. Examples of Factor Ratings • Probability • 5 Certainty • 4 Likely • 3 So/So • 2 Unlikely • 1 Very unlikely • Potential for Increased Control • 5 High, with cost savings • 4 High at low cost • 3 Moderate • 2 Low • 1 Low and very costly

23. Example of Rating Scheme • Significance = • (Severity + RI + Prob) Control