From Aspects to Impacts

1
From Aspects to Impacts

• EPA Regions 9 10
• and
• The Federal Network for Sustainability

2
Objectives

• After this discussion, you should be able to
• Define an environmental impact
• Give examples of impacts from your facility

3
Overview

• Definition
• Examples
• Building an Inventory

4
Definition

• An environmental impact is a change to the
  environment, either adverse or beneficial, wholly
  or partially resulting from an organizations
  activities, products, or services.

5
Another Definition

• The environment is the surroundings in which an
  organization operates including air, water,
  land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans and
  their interactions.
• (scale goes from within an organization to the
  global system)

6
Environmental Impacts

• Measurable
• Regulated or below regulatory thresholds
• Removed from source
• Some are focus of current environmental programs
• Others no current program

7
Examples of Aspects Impacts
ASPECTS IMPACTS

• Vehicles emit exhaust
• Water leaks
• Fueling spills occur
• Containers not closed
• Noise from engine runup
• Lights, computers left on at night
• Paper bleached w/ Cl
• Bicycles dont emit exhaust

• Sulfur oxides released
• Water resource depleted
• Stormwater contaminated
• Chemical may be spilled
• Hearing, sleep impaired
• Increased CO2, coal-fired power plant emissions
• Dioxins created in W/W
• Air pollution reduced

8
National Air Pollutant Emissions1970 to 1998
9
U.S. Water Withdrawals 1940 to 1995
10
MSW Generation and Recovery1980 to 1999
11
MSW Generation and RecoveryPer Capita 1980 to
1999
12
U.S. Toxic Chemical Releases1988 to 1999
13
U.S. Pesticide Usage for Agriculture 1990 to
1997
14
U.S. Energy Consumption1960 to 1999
15
EMS and Impacts

• Use the aspects register to identify impacts
• Environmental policy dictates which aspects are
  significant
• EMS addresses significant aspects
• Document your process for identifying aspects and
  impacts look at your NEPA or PPOA process

16
Impacts from Your Facility

• Prepare summary of environmental impacts
• Graphs make large amounts of data easy to
  understand
• Document where the data came from
• Use to help build support for EMS
• If you dont have the data, start collecting!

17
Summary

• Identification of environmental aspects and
  impacts is a key part of an EMS
• Aspects and impacts arise from activities,
  products, and services
• An EMS includes procedures for identification and
  updating of aspects and impacts