SMAS Worksafe Preferred Suppler: Environmental Management
Organisations are increasingly focused on sustainability as a key issue and expect to see a commitment from their suppliers to sustainable environmental practices. Providing evidence of this commitment doesn’t necessarily need to be a huge, complex task.
Like our SSIP assessment, SMAS will assess your suppliers’ processes and procedures to ensure that they are appropriate and applicable to their business size and activities.
If a company already holds a valid ISO 14001 UKAS accreditation or EMAS certificate, then they simply need to provide evidence to complete its environmental application and fulfill this element of their SMAS Worksafe profile.
What does the SMAS review of a suppliers Environmental Management information help me to achieve?
- We review the information to check that the supplier is compliant with all relevant legislation
- We assess the supplier’s individual documentation and provide recommendations to improve their Environmental Management Systems (EMS)
- We remove significant time and cost needed by your organisation to manage and monitor these processes in-house.
Why is it important?
Environmental management has become increasingly important over recent years as the volume of environmental legislation and regulations increases.
All businesses in the UK have legal environmental obligations that they must meet.
As an organisation working with sub-contractors you will have a responsibility to ensure that both you and your suppliers meet these legal obligations.
The good news is that by taking a more proactive approach to these issues your organisation and your suppliers’ businesses will benefit from making changes – in terms of reducing both costs and waste.
There are significant penalties applied to businesses in the UK not adhering to legislation and responsibility may fall with both supplier and Client organisation.
Environmental management
The SMAS Worksafe solution will look at each supplier’s approach to Environmental Management to ensure that they meet the current legislation and are operating in a manner which considers the impact they have on the environment.
Our audit of this information will provide you with the assurance that these obligations are being met and that they are monitored and regularly reviewed to ensure a consistent and reliable approach is being taken.
An overview of the review we carry out can be seen in the below tables.
In summary, we will review the information to provide assurance that:
- a risk assessment has been carried out and that each supplier understands the potential environmental impact of the work they do
- that the supplier can identify through regular monitoring and review processes any opportunities to improve their environmental performance to reduce energy costs and unnecessary waste
- the supplier is managing waste and transporting and disposing of waste in the correct ways
- any extra controls for specific hazardous waste substances are managed properly
- correct procedures are implemented to reduce the risk of air pollution and the management of other emissions
- that the supplier has processes in place to reduce the risk of contamination of groundwater
- that the supplier meets all their obligations under UK legislation and demonstrates that their Environmental Management takes into consideration how they manage this approach with their staff
Environmental regulations for your industry
SMAS provides solutions to several different industries from Construction to Care and Education. We understand that different activities produce different types of risk and so our Environmental Specialists are trained to understand what these are and the key areas most important to the arena you operate in.