TABLE OF CONTENTS All the building blocks of the EMS are now in place, the Registers and Operating Procedures (backed up by any Work Instructions and forms) are written. Now you have to put the roof on top of the structure to bind it all together by writing an Environmental Management Manual.
Many people think they have to write their manual at the start of the project. Such manuals can tend to be full of pious words of good intentions and parrot phrases from the Standard. Then it has to be re-written once the EMS has become a reality to bring it up-to-date. It is far better to leave writing the manual until the rest of the work has been done.
The manual serves a number of purposes:
It links the component parts of your EMS to the clauses and requirements of the Standard.
The act of writing it helps you to check that you have addressed all the clauses and requirements of the Standard.
It gives your assessor a guide to the structure of your EMS, so that he/she knows where to look to find how each clause of the Standard is satisfied.
Lastly, if a customer asks you to prove that you as a management are in control of your environmental responsibilities, you can let them have a copy of the manual.
Arising from this last point, you need to be careful that you do not include any confidential information in the manual. Anything confidential...
