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Industrial Environmental Management Systems

BayBiotech.NET
Environmental Management Systems (EMS) can be considered as a tool to manage the environmental quality policies and procedures as per Industry standards and regulatory guidelines. EMS provides a framework to efficiently operate organizational responsibilities and activities in most efficient ways keeping the risk to the environment at its minimum. EMS also provides scope to the organization to implement corrective and preventive plan in order to continuously improve the environmental performance. An effective management system ensures that adequate efforts are properly deployed in regard to training, monitoring and reporting.

Three main environmental guidelines that fall within the scope of Biotech/ Life Sciences Industry and will need integration with EMS are:

RC14001: Responsible Care® (RC) is a voluntary initiative of the worldwide chemical industry with a focus on an on-going efforts to improve the safety and the protection of health and the environment, applicable not only to the organization but to the entire supply chain. The program was first introduced in 1988 by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) to address public concerns about the manufacture and use of chemicals and so far has been adopted in over 45 countries. To further strengthen the program,
ACC integrated the Responsible Care® requirements into the globally accepted Environmental Management Standard, ISO 14001.Responsible Care® principles in some form or other have been long adopted by leading organizations in the chemical industry. (http://www.techstreet.com/)
OHSAS18001: OHSAS 18001 standards were created by concerted efforts of the world’s leading national standards bodies, certification bodies, and specialists for occupational health and safety standards. The OHSAS specification is applicable to any organization that wishes to establish an OH&S management system to eliminate or minimize risk to employees and other interested parties who may be exposed to OH&S risks associated with its activities and provides guidelines to implement maintain and improve an OH&S management system.( http://www.osha-bs8800-ohsas-18001-health-and-safety.com/ohsas-18001.htm)
ISO14001: The ISO 14000 family addresses various aspects of environmental management. The very first two standards, ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004 deal with environmental management systems (EMS). ISO 14001:2004 provides the requirements for an EMS and ISO 14004:2004 gives general EMS guidelines.
 ISO 14001:2004 provides a generic requirement for an environmental management system. The underlying philosophy is that whatever the organization's activity, the requirements of an effective EMS are the same, whereas:
 ISO 14004:2004 provides guidelines on the elements of an environmental management system and its implementation, and discusses principal issues involved. (http://www.iso.org/)

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