The Contribution of Businesses to the Environmental Pollution

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The Contribution of Businesses to the Environmental Pollution

Nowadays, the impact of businesses on the environment has become and still remains a critical part of its overall performance. A business might be doing a great job in providing people with superior and reliable products, services and jobs, but on the other hand, its activities may be enormously contributing to the environmental pollution.

Pollution is usually described as the introduction of a pollutant or contaminant into a natural environment. Whenever the word “pollution” is mentioned, many people, more often than not, think of air pollution only. However, pollution as a popular issue can take several other major forms as well, such as pollution of water, air, soil or land, noise, and more of the same.

Without losing sight of the fact that pollution can have natural sources, as in the case of volcanic eruptions, biological decay and forest fires, the term pollution usually refers to the by-products of man-made processes such as energy production, waste incineration, transportation, deforestation and agriculture.

The current environmental issues have been emerged with fast growing economies and industrialization. China is obviously the world’s biggest polluter, followed by the United States and India. This pollution caused, whether directly or indirectly, by industrial companies is known as industrial pollution.

Almost all industries generate some level of pollution. As business activities and processes vary greatly between industries, it results in many different types of pollutants and wastes. The type and amount of contaminants discharged may differ even between individual companies within the same industry. In particular, some industries are famous for increased levels of pollution they cause to the environment. The metallurgical sector, mining, power generating, pulp and paper producers, and fertilizer industries are well-known for their contribution to the environmental pollution and degradation. In addition to damaging the natural environment, pollution also carries the potential for serious adverse effects on the human health. Moreover, another consequence of the environmental pollution is also the Earth's atmosphere which is leading to a lot of climate changes like acid raining, ozone depletion, global warming, etc.

Over the last decades many acts, legislations, regulations and protocols for preventing, reducing and controlling the environmental pollution have been developed at national and international levels.

Public awareness and expanded sense of consciousness on environmental issues have been pushing organizations to adopt an environmental approach in order to reduce their adverse impacts to the environment by avoiding, reducing or controlling the creation, emission or discharge of any type of pollutant or waste.

Following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio summit, held in June 1992, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) established a technical committee consisting of representatives from over 50 countries, who based on the principles of Rio Contract, developed an international standard for Environmental Management Systems, ISO 14001. The ISO 14001 standard was first published in 1996, then revised in year 2004.

The overall aim of ISO 14001 is to support the environmental protection and prevention of pollution in balance with socio-economic needs. It enables an organization to develop an environmental policy, establish objectives and processes to achieve the policy commitments, take action as needed for the improvement of its performance.

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Conclusion

Last decades, the public concern of the environmental pollution problems has significantly increased. Organizations all around the world are taking initiatives toward achieving and demonstrating sound environmental performance by controlling the impacts of their activities on the environment, consistent with their environmental policy and objectives.

The international standard, ISO 14001, is intended to provide organizations with the elements of an effective Environmental Management System (EMS) that can be integrated with other management requirements and help organizations achieve environmental and economic goals.

PECB (Professional Evaluation and Certification Board) is a personnel certification body for a wide range of professional standards. It offers ISO 14001 training and certification services for professionals wanting to support an organization in the implementation of these management systems.

ISO Standards and Professional Trainings offered by PECB:• Certified Lead Implementer (5 days)• Certified Lead Auditor (5 days)• Certified Foundation (2 days)• ISO Introduction (1 day)

Lead Auditor, Lead Implementer and Master are certification schemes accredited by ANSI ISO/IEC 17024.

Narta Voca is the Heath, Safety and Environment (HSE) Product Manager at PECB. She is in charge of developing and maintaining training courses related to HSE. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact her at hse@pecb.org.

For further information, please visit www.pecb.org/en/training

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