Planning

In the planning phase of your EMS, you will identify how your school impacts the environment, determine which of those impacts are significant, set objectives and targets to minimize environmental impacts and improve environmental performance, and establish action plans to meet the objectives and targets.

Learn how to plan for your EMS by visiting the sections and using the tools listed below.

Environmental Aspects and Impacts
Identifying and prioritizing the environmental aspects and impacts associated with your school is a critical element of an EMS and describes how your school interacts with the environment.

Identifying environmental aspects is like taking a picture of your “foot,” while determining impacts is like gauging the effect, or “footprint.” According to ISO 14001 definitions:
• An aspect is an element of an organization’s activities, products, or services that can interact with the environment.
• An impact is any change to the environment…wholly or partially resulting from an organization’s activities, products, or services.

Assessing environmental aspects and impacts on a campus can be particularly difficult because of the complex organizational structure and wide variety of activities of many schools. There are many approaches to identifying and prioritizing aspects and impacts and the key is to find an approach that works for your organization.

Examples

Washington State University Identification of Environmental Aspects
Michigan State University System Aspects Ranking

Tools

EPA New England EMS Guide
This guide was developed by EPA New England and colleges and universities nationwide. Use it to design a cost-effective EMS that improves compliance and environmental performance, promotes pollution prevention, and saves money. The guide provides a framework to systematically identify, prioritize, manage, mitigate, and document the environmental aspects and impacts of your school’s activities.

PEER Center Steps for Implementation
The information and guidance provided on this Web site is structured to address the needs and issues that a public entity might encounter as they prepare for, develop, and implement an EMS

Compliance
All EMSs must address compliance with applicable environmental regulations. To comply with the laws and regulations, you must know what the regulations are and implement procedures and install equipment to comply with those regulations.

Regulatory compliance requirements include:
• Federal requirements
• State and local requirements
• Permit conditions

Other environmental “requirements” might include:
• Talloires Declaration
• Copernicus Initiative
• Greenhouse Gas Reduction Commitments
• Your school’s own procedures and standards

The cost of noncompliance can have significant effects, such as:
• Penalties – Fines to colleges and universities can range from $10,000 to over $1,500,000.
• University Reputation – As environmental awareness increases among prospective students, their parents, and funding organizations, poor environmental performance may negatively impact enrollment and funding.
• Community Relations – Regulatory violations not only affect the campus, but might also affect the image of neighboring communities.

By anticipating new requirements, you may be able to minimize future compliance obligations through process changes. To anticipate requirements, identify and use guidance documents and technical contacts at pertinent regulating agencies. You may also consider maintaining contact with local and national associations and workgroups and committing to reviewing your compliance requirements regularly.

Examples

Washington State University Legal and Other Requirements Matrix
Michigan State University Environmental Regulatory Controls

Tools

EPA New England EMS Guide
This guide was developed by EPA New England and colleges and universities nationwide. Use it to design a cost-effective EMS that improves compliance and environmental performance, promotes pollution prevention, and saves money. The guide provides a framework to systematically identify, prioritize, manage, mitigate, and document the environmental aspects and impacts of your school’s activities.

PEER Center Steps for Implementation
The information and guidance provided on this Web site is structured to address the needs and issues that a public entity might encounter as they prepare for, develop, and implement an EMS

Objectives and Targets
After you identify your school’s environmental aspects, impacts, and compliance requirements, your next step is to develop objectives and targets for the significant, or highest priority, environmental aspects and compliance concerns.

• An objective is a goal that is consistent with your environmental policy, priority environmental aspects and impacts, and applicable environmental regulations.
• A target is a more detailed performance goal related to and supporting a specific objective. Specific targets must be met to achieve an objective.

The objectives and targets will drive many other EMS elements, particularly measurement and monitoring activities. For this reason, they should be energetically communicated to all participants. It is critical to gather endorsement from your school’s administration and input from the faculty, students, and staff affected by the objective to ensure that targets are meaningful and practical.

After you’ve developed objectives and targets, create a detailed action plan for each objective to initiate action. Within the action plan, be sure to define responsibilities for particular actions, describe how the actions will be taken, and set deadlines for completing the actions.

It is essential to normalize the data collected so that increases or decreases in activity do not skew the data. For example, if water conservation is an EMS objective and campus-wide water use is the parameter measured for the target, an increase in student enrollment might affect water use reduction efforts. Examples of normalization metrics that might be used include:

Tools

EPA New England EMS Guide
This guide was developed by EPA New England and colleges and universities nationwide. Use it to design a cost-effective EMS that improves compliance and environmental performance, promotes pollution prevention, and saves money. The guide provides a framework to systematically identify, prioritize, manage, mitigate, and document the environmental aspects and impacts of your school’s activities.

PEER Center Steps for Implementation
The information and guidance provided on this Web site is structured to address the needs and issues that a public entity might encounter as they prepare for, develop, and implement an EMS

Operational Control
Operational controls are documented procedures that apply to operations with significant environmental aspects or those related to EMS objectives and targets. The purpose of operational controls is to build environmental performance into daily operations.

Due to the numerous and diverse operations found at most colleges and universities, schools should exert discretion as to the number of written operational controls to ensure that they are clearly communicated and genuinely implemented. Procedures may already exist for operations with significant environmental aspects.

Operational control procedures should be considered if activities are causing compliance or liability problems, are completed inconsistently by different people, or require complex recordkeeping. Procedures should state:
• To whom the procedure applies
• To which operations the procedure applies
• Steps that must be followed to complete the operation or activity
• Any training required to execute the procedure properly

Examples of operations that might require written control procedures include:
• Hazardous materials management
• Hazardous waste handling storage and disposal
• Laboratory chemical tracking and use
• Pest management (typically in the form of integrated pest management plan)
• Fuels management (fueling, storage, and spill prevention)
• Worker safety

In many cases, operational controls can be less formal than written procedures. For example, an inspection log for the hazardous waste storage area, brief checklists, or signs with simple instructions can be sufficient operational controls.

Examples

Washington State University Operational Control Procedure
Michigan State University Campus Operational Control Procedure

Tools

EPA New England EMS Guide
This guide was developed by EPA New England and colleges and universities nationwide. Use it to design a cost-effective EMS that improves compliance and environmental performance, promotes pollution prevention, and saves money. The guide provides a framework to systematically identify, prioritize, manage, mitigate, and document the environmental aspects and impacts of your school’s activities.

PEER Center Steps for Implementation
The information and guidance provided on this Web site is structured to address the needs and issues that a public entity might encounter as they prepare for, develop, and implement an EMS

After you've finished planning, it is time to begin implementing your EMS.