Environmental management

Environmental management is about systematically recording environmental performance or the impact on the environment. This means that aspects such as water consumption, emissions to air (e.g. CO2) and water (e.g. waste water), the introduction of toxins into the environment, raw material consumption or land consumption (e.g. sealing) etc. are recorded. Recording is the first step in managing consumption and impacts.
Environmental management helps the company to fulfil official environmental requirements or to meet its own (environmentally oriented) requirements for processes, products, etc.

Environmental aspects are focussed on, i.e. social aspects do not play a role in environmental management. Environmental management can be an element of sustainability management.
Important elements in the implementation of environmental management can be environmental management officers (EMOs) and the environmental management system (EMS). The system forms the larger framework for environmental management.

A separate procedure can be developed for the implementation of environmental management. It is also possible to fall back on numerous templates or management standards. The latter option allows companies to use tried-and-tested frameworks, thus relying on experience and external help and enabling comparability with other sectors or organisations. Typical environmental management approaches are EMAS (formerly known as the EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) and ISO14001 (environmental management systems) or ISO14004 (environmental management)