How to identify aspects and impacts in your SME and what is this Life cycle thinking anyway?

If you are an SME owner or manager, whether you are ISO14001 certified, working towards it, or simply want to have a better understanding of the sustainability side of your business, one of the biggest questions you will face is: 'How do I identify aspects and impacts?'. It may sound daunting, but in reality, it is just understanding how your business interacts with environment and how you, as a business, can influence or control these interactions.

## Understanding Aspects and Impacts

 

Aspect is what your business activity does that interacts with the environment, e.g., turning your computer on uses electricity, i.e. raw resource; printer paper going in the shredder creates waste.

Impact is the result of this activity, whether local, regional or global.  E.g., impact of using electricity is CO2 emissions, impact of paper use is deforestation. 

Aspect = cause, Impact = effect

## Identifying and Documenting Aspects and Impacts

1.      List all activities of your business that could affect the environment, directly or indirectly.  Walk round your site and make notes.  Which activity uses energy? Water? Which activity creates waste? What kind of waste? How does raw material get to your site?  How does your product get to your customer? Which manufacturing process results in emissions – noise, odour, heat etc.  List your Aspects.

2.     What are potential consequences of your business activities, i.e. what are the Impacts?

3.     Think Life Cycle (yes, this is the Life Cycle Perspective).  Where did the raw material you use originate?  How was it produced?  What resources were used? How was it transported to you? What packaging was used? What will your customer do with the packaging?  When your product reaches the end of its useful life, what happens?  You may not be able to control all the factors, but you, as a business, have a choice to use more sustainably produced materials, ask for recyclable packaging, look for supplier closer to your site to reduce distance travelled.  Keeping Life Cycle in mind focuses your attention on small changes you could make.

4.     Not all aspects are equally important.  You need to focus on ##significantaspects to your business.  Rate them by severity of impact, by frequency of occurrence, by requirement to comply with legislation, and by what controls you have or don’t have in place.

5.     Create your Aspects and Impacts register.  A simple (well, simpl-ish) spreadsheet to list all activities, aspects, impacts, applicable legislation and ranking of each.  Consider and document how you will identify aspect as significant.

6.     This document is only of use if it is reviewed regularly, and if you consider, together with your team, on what the business can do to mitigate the significant aspects.  In fact, ISO14001 requires you to act on significant aspects.  Is it a chore?  Depends how you look at it.  Yes, it takes time and effort to do it properly, but as a result you will have much better understanding of your business’ footprint and what you can do to make it that little bit lighter.

7.     Engage your team.  You can’t do it all on your own.  It is important that your team is involved at every step – from identifying the aspects to deciding on the actions to mitigate the significant ones.  Your team need to know that sustainability is important to you as a business owner – talk to them, discuss small wins and longer strategies, train them to understand how their work contributes to mitigating impacts.  How they can save energy, create less waste, prevent chemicals from entering the waterways etc.  Make them feel they can make a difference!

## Advantages of Addressing Environmental Aspects for Business Growth

Why should you spend your time and effort on documenting your aspects?

Whether you are already certified to ISO14001, planning to, or just looking at your business from sustainability perspective, understanding and managing your environmental aspects is a sound business strategy which will pay off in lower costs, mitigating risks and enhancing your reputation. 

·      By looking at your energy consumption you will uncover ways of reducing costs through more efficient processes and equipment. 

·      By producing less waste, you will cut costs of disposal through recycling and reuse.

·      By identifying relevant environmental legislation, you are ensuring your business compliance

·      By proactively addressing your significant aspects you are reducing the likelihood of environmental incidents and fines

·      An up-to-date Aspects and Impacts register helps you stay compliant, confident and audit ready

Start small, review regularly, involve the whole team, think beyond your own operations - consider Life Cycle.