TABLE OF CONTENTS What do we mean by the words 'environment' and 'environmental management'?
The word 'environment' is used in different ways. We talk of the 'home environment', the 'work environment', the 'social environment'. We use the word to describe our physical surroundings, made up of air, trees, grass. It is this latter use that is the subject of this book. Our concern must be for the world as a whole, its 'air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans, and their inter-relations', to quote from ISO 14001.
By 'environmental management' we mean keeping control of our activities so that we do what we can to conserve these physical resources and to avoid polluting them. We can apply these controls in our life domestically, in what we buy and what we throw away, but it is usually in our work where the environmental impact of what we do is greatest. Such has been the impact of industrial activity that resources are becoming depleted and environmental damage is increasing. Some of the steps taken by the international community and governments to control and improve the situation are described in Chapter 2.
In this book, we are concerned with control at the level of the business, whether that be a chemical works or a refinery, engineering, printing, transport, or even office based businesses or teaching where the environmental impacts may be smaller but are still real. Because of the all-embracing nature of environmental management, the word 'organisation' has been used throughout...
