“Green Bright Future” LLC provides consulting services in the field of environmental audit, environmental management system, corporate environmental management and cleaner production assessment.

These audits and assessments are conceptually very broad and therefore details of their synergies is discussed below.

ONE. ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

GOAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM:

An environmental management system is an integral part of an organization's management system and is a systematic approach by the organization's management to environmental issues. An environmental management system is a tool for monitoring the environmental impact of organization's activities, products, and services, regardless of the type or size of the organization.

It is any planning and implementation system that a company employs to manage the way it interacts with the natural environment, specially to identify activities that have a significant impact on the environment, take mitigation actions and comply with environmental laws, regulations, and standards.  

Every country of the worlds is commited to introduce environmental management system, improve the corporate environmental management, promote cleaner production and advanced technology, and reducing negative impacts on the environment.

PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM:

The environmental management system is an integral part of an organization's business plan and can be a powerful tool to help businesses improve their environmental performance and reduce their carbon footprint.

By having an EMS in place that continues to function with changes in the market environment, it also helps minimize the costs and downstream risks with environmental management.

1. Planning your EMS
2. Implementing it in your organization
3. Monitor the system
4. Take action

This is the basis of ecologically oriented management aimed at the sustainable development of the enterprise.

When sustainable development is concerned, the economy in general and each individual business in particular must implement environmental management principles:

1. Recognize environmental management as the highest common priority and the key determinant of sustainable development of the company, and set up policies, programmes and practices protecting the environment;
2. Fully integrate the accepted policies, programmes and practices into every job as one of the basic elements of management in all its functions;
3. Continue upgrading the company’s common policies and programmes, taking into account technical development, scientific understanding, customer needs, and the community’s expectations;
4. Educate, train and motivate employees to include environmental protection in all their activities, and to treat the environment responsibly;
5. Estimate the environmental impact of any activity or project before they begin implementing them;
6. Develop and provide products and services that will not affect the environment inappropriately and that will be safe when used for the intended purposes;
7. Advise and educate customers and the public about safe use, transport and so on, and warn their customers about the characteristics of their products or services that are indicative of their treatment of the environment (such as the percentage of recycled materials, spare part replacement, reprocessing and so on);
8. Take care of efficient energy and material consumption, sustainable use of renewable energy sources, reduction of negative impacts on the environment and waste generation, and safe and responsible waste disposal in developing, constructing and building their facilities and managing their activities;
9. Investigate the environmental impact of their raw materials, products, processes, air and water emissions, and generated waste in order to reduce their negative impact;
10. Change their production, marketing, services or the management of their activities in line with scientific or technical understandings to prevent serious and irreversible damage to the environment;
11. Encourage their suppliers and other business partners to accept these principles;
12. Develop and support a plan outlining the preparations for an emergency in cooperation with the relevant departments, representatives of local governments and self-governments, and others;
13. Contribute to the transfer of environmentally friendly technologies;
14. Contribute to the development of public policies, business, city and state programmes and educational initiatives that will raise awareness of the need for waste management and environmental protection;
15. Measure environmental parameters, regularly check and estimate compliance with the requirements of the company, the legal regulations, and these principles, and submit appropriate reports to the authorities, the employees and the public in certain intervals.

BENEFITS OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM:

Creating a sustainable environmental management system provides opportunities for an organization to increase efficiency, prevent of risks, improve law enforcement, increase reputation, increase operational efficiency, and reduce costs.

EMS covers economic, social, and environmental aspects. Considering these three aspects has a positive impact on finance, insurance, markets and other sectors.

Any organization having EMS are trusted by customers (clientss, employees, shareholders, suppliers, regulators, insurance companies, financial and local organizations) that the organization is focused on prevention and compliance.

There are many benefits of having an EMS, including the ability to help organizations:

1. Be recognized in the market
2. Confirm a firm’s environmentally friendly operations and management
3. Continuous improvement in all areas of operations
4. Improved environmental performance
5. Increase market size and reputation
6. Reduce waste and energy costs
7. Increased profit
8. Increase customer confidence
9. Increased market competitiveness
10. Improved cost control
11. Improving working conditions for employees
12. Improving relations between industry and government.

TWO.  CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

GOAL AND OBJECTIVES:

A corporate environmental management of an enterprise is a complex of organizational and legal activities aimed at improving the production efficiency and investment capacity of an enterprise, managing the environmental performance, and ensuring the man-made safety of the environment.

PRINCIPLES:

The corporate environmental management is part of the overall management system of the enterprise and is the basic principle for establishing an environmental management system. This includes:

1. Recognize environmental management as the highest common priority and  establish an environmental department and division
2. Implement an effective environmental policy in the enterprise
3. The authority and staff of the company should be coordinated
4. Clarify the environmental requirements for the company and whether they meet the man-made and environmental safety indicators.
5. Evaluate the potential impact of company operations on the environment and human health
6. Consider the requirements for all production cycles, especially the production or service phase
7. Whether the company has sufficient financial and manpower capacities and resources to meet the environmental quality requirements.
8. Determine whether the environmental management of the company is in line with the environmental policy, future goals and objectives
9. Evaluate the quality of environmental management and seeking opportunities for improvements.

IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS:

In order to introduce EMS, a number of activities are required to be implemented. These include:

1. Define environmental policy and set requirements for environmental management systems
2. Develop a program and plan to implement the environmental policy of the enterprise
3. Creating conditions for implementation and performance of environmental impact assessment and EMP

An important element of EMS is the analysis of the environmental quality management system, which is characterized by following actions: These include:

1. Analysis of the environmental quality management system in accordance with the requirements of laws and regulations;
2. Evaluate the company's compliance with environmental requirements, standards, rules and norms;
3. Environmental management practice and comparison of environmental policy and company’s performance;
4. Opportunities to improve the competitiveness of products and services through the implementation of environmental management systems;
5. Assess whether company’s management is efficient

The following issues need to be considered when analyzing the company's environmental performance. These include:

1. Is there any evidence or documents that determine or approve environmental policy?
2. Does this policy document reflect the direction of the company’s activities?
3. Whether the environmental policy is supported by the company management and whether it can be amended according to the comments and suggestions of the employees
4. Is environmental policy an incentive for the implementation of environmental management plans, environmental monitoring program and organizational functions?
5. Does the environmental policy address the issue of continuous improvement of the environmental quality in the area surrounding the company?

The next step of environmental management is to assess the environmental impact of the company's planned and current activities: These include:

1. What is the magnitude, intensity, probability and duration of the impact on the environment?
2. How will the industry affect its ability to attract investment by having EMS?

THREE. CLEANER PRODUCTION ASSESSMENT

GOAL AND OBJECTIVES:

Cleaner production has been defined by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as “the continuous application of an integrated preventative environmental strategy to processes, products and services to increase efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment”

Cleaner production focuses on the reduction of environmental impacts over the entire life cycle of a product, from raw material extraction to the ultimate disposal of the product, by appropriate design.

Cleaner production is a management tool that improves the economic and environmental efficiency of production by using natural resources in the most rational and efficient way, reducing losses, preventing environmental pollution, and reducing pollution at the source within the product life cycle.

Cleaner production can be applied to the processes used in any industry, to products themselves and to various services provided in society. For production processes, cleaner production results from one or a combination of the following - conserving raw materials and energy, substituting toxic/hazardous materials by more benign ones and reducing the quantity and/or toxicity of all emissions and wastes before they leave a production process.

Cleaner production is also an economic tool, because waste is considered a product with negative economic value. Each step to reduce the consumption of raw materials and energy and prevent or reduce the generation of waste, can increase productivity and bring financial benefits to an enterprise. Since CP involves minimizing or eliminating waste before any potential pollutants are created, it can also help reduce the cost of the end-of-pipe treatment that may still, in many cases, be necessary, albeit for lower quantities of emissions.

Obviously, CP is an environmental tool, given that it prevents the generation of pollution in the first place. The environmental advantage of Cleaner Production is that it solves the waste problem at its source, while conventional end-of-pipe treatment often simply moves pollutants from one environmental medium to another, the scrubbing of air emissions, for example, generates liquid waste streams, while waste water treatment produces significant quantities of harmful sludge.

Cleaner production is considered in two main areas. These include:

1. Economic field. Cleaner production should not be seen as an environmentally significant strategy. Because economic factors are important. Systematic analysis of production costs can save a certain amount of money. In other words, raw materials and energy costs, solid waste management and wastewater treatment costs can be assessed and analyzed to identify ways to implement the principle of cleaner production.

2. Environmental field. The principles of cleaner production are different from the physical, chemical, thermal and biological measures that are taken once the waste is generated. That is why pollution prevention principles can help prevent the generation of  pollutants. Reducing the generation of solid and liquid pollutants at source is important to eliminate the possible impacts on the environment and to solve environmental problems. Taking any action after environment has been polluted by industrial waste is not enough sound.

CLEANER PRODUCTION PRINCIPLES:

The main principle of cleaner production is to identify the causes and sources of pollution and waste from production, and to identify options to minimize waste and emissions out of industrial processes through source reduction strategies and increase efficiency based on the analysis of the flow of materials and energy in a company. According to the methodology approved by the United Nations Environment Program, the assessment of cleaner production is carried out in five stages, each of which consists of several steps. The steps include:

1. New practices and management of production and services
2. Environmental efficiency + production efficiency
3. Assess cleaner production
4. Include product life cycle
5. Environmental Management and Supply Chain Management, Sustainable Industrial Resource Management, Energy Management and Waste Management.

PROCESS STAGES OF CLEANER PRODUCTION ASSESSMENT:

A Cleaner Production Assessment is a process of identifying opportunities to improve production efficiency by determining quantity, causes, and sources of industrial pollution and waste, and then reducing pollution and waste at the source, reducing the use of natural resources and raw materials and increasing energy efficiency.

The cleaner production assessment should be conducted according to the scientific based methodology and capacity. It should be an integral part of the production management system. The assessment of cleaner production basically provides answers the main three questions. These include:

1. Where do wastes and losses occur? /identify source/
2. Why do they occur? /assess causes/
3. How can they be eliminated? /determine the mitigation actions/

The cleaner production assessment shall be carried out in a long-term, planned and systematic manner in accordance with a specific methodology. The assessment can be done  for entire or partial company or unit. The assessment phases include:  

Phase I: Planning and Organising Cleaner Production.

Step 1. Obtain Management Commitment

Step 2. Establish a project team.

Step 3. Develop Environmental Policy, Objectives and Targets

Step 4. Plan the Cleaner Production Assessment

Phase II: Preliminary assessment

Step 5. Company Description and Flow Chart

Step 6. Walk-through Inspection

Step 7. Establish a Focus

Phase III: Assessment

Step 8. Material Balance

Step 9 Cause Diagnosis

Step 10. Record and Sort Options

Step 11. Selection of feasible options.

Phase IV: Evaluation and Feasibility Study

Step 12 Preliminary evaluations

Step 13 Technical evaluations t

Step 14 Economic evaluations

Step 15. Environmental evaluations

Step 16 select viable options

Phase V: Implementation and continuation

Step 17 Prepare an implementation plan

Step 18 Implement selected options

Step 19 Monitoring performance

Step 20 Sustain cleaner production activities