Environmental management system

An environmental management system is good for the environment and good for the company, if you set it up correctly. The key is product orientation, in other words, directing environmental management work towards the company's products and services and doing so in a business-like manner.

How do you create product orientation from environmental work?

A good start is to carry out a quantative environmental review, for example using Swerea's template for environmental review. Focus is then placed on the flow of resources and products through the company right from the start. The review can then easily be turned into a product life cycle assessment for any strategically selected product. The result of the life cycle assessment often provides suggestions for improvements. These should be discussed with the company's customers so that you ensure that there is a market for the environmentally improved products.

Environmental laws to keep up to date with

ISO 14001 requires you to have good knowledge of all environmental laws that affect the company, and that the company follows all of these laws. This is a tough requirement to fulfil in Sweden, where the legislation is tricky to say the least. By subscribing to the current version of Swerea's overview of environmental legislation your company can use this to help keep track of, and comply with environmental laws.

Design of the environmental management system

Measuring your company´s environmental impact, authored by Swerea, has helped many companies understand how activities impact the environment by analysing the whole flow of resources through the company. The assessment can be easily modified to a life cycle assessment for one of the company's products.