• Batteries
• Pesticides
• Mercury-containing equipment
• Lamps

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recently added hazardous waste aerosol cans as a category of Universal Waste material (30 CFR § 273.6) under this regulation. With an effective date of February 7, 2020, the addition of aerosol cans as a category of Universal Waste is intended to provide a solid system for managing discarded aerosol cans and promote the
collections and recycling of hazardous waste aerosol cans.

The rule will affect large quantity generators who generate, transport, treat, recycle, or dispose of hazardous waste aerosol cans (it does not affect households or very small quantity generators). Due to their characteristic for ignitability, aerosol cans have traditionally qualified as Hazardous Waste (40 CFR 261.21). The inclusion of aerosol cans as Universal Waste means that handlers can now have to apply the Universal Waste management standards which include more relaxed requirements for labeling, accumulation time, employee training, responses to release, export requirements, and tracking.

In some states, aerosol cans have already been added as a category of Universal Waste. For example, in California, Universal Waste includes, among other things, aerosol cans as well as Electronic Devices, CRTs, and CRT Glass. Regulations vary state-by-state, as such, to ensure compliance, review and understand the guidelines applicable to your state.

Business Management Systems such as ISO 14001 Environmental Management System (EMS), ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System and R2 Standard require organizations to review and keep updated their list of legal and regulatory requirements, including RCRA requirements. If you need guidance on the standards of Hazardous Waste and
Universal Waste management and reviewing your legal and regulatory compliance contact GlenView Group at info@glenviewgroup.com.

Benefits OF R2 Certification

There is an increasing legal requirement for Electronic Recyclers to achieve Recycling Certification. The Federal Government has banned its agencies from incinerator or landfill disposal of electronic waste and required them to use third party certified electronic scrap recyclers. In addition to that about 25 States in the U.S has adopted electronic scrap recycling legislations.

• Even if the e-waste is recycled by a non-certified recycler, it may result in health and environmental risks to workers from hazardous and toxic materials and security risks to data destruction. Getting R2 certified enables a recycler to mitigate risks.
• Private corporations are now also requiring recycling certified organizations to manage their electronic scrap. A recycler can become a preferred supplier by getting R2 certification and will become eligible to bid for Federal, State and Corporate tenders.
• Vendors having R2 responsible Recycling Certification give assurance to government departments, corporate sector and individuals the surety that their e-waste will be disposed off in a responsible manner.
• The recycler gets a complete environmental, health and safety management system when he achieves the R2 Certification.
• It leads to improved recovery planning and better material management.
  R2 certification ensures due diligence throughout the downstream recycling chain leading to improved traceability and accountability.
• It also leads to reduced insurance requirements and costs due to better control of risks.
  Community relations are improved as they have an assurance that the environment will not be damaged.
• It also results in reduced accidents and injury incidents and reduces short and long-term liabilities by implementing preventive action procedures.
• Improves downstream due-diligence for customers with end-of-life electronics

Finally, R2 Certification leads to decreased processing costs which increases profitability of the e-waste recycler.

Until now, Glenview Group’s articles have focused on the Quality Management System or the ISO 9001:2015 standard, which people often just call “ISO.”  It is the most popular standard and an area in which Glenview Group, Inc. regularly works.  However, a lot of Glenview Group, Inc. consultants have extensive expertise with Environmental, Health and Safety Management Systems or ISO14001:2015, OHSAS 18001:2007, R2 Responsible Recycling, RIOS, e-Stewards, etc.  Therefore, next series of articles we will write will be related to EHS Management Systems, ISO 14001:2015 and OSHAS 18001:2007 (or ISO 45001) transitions and implementation.

One of our primary contributors is Mike Easterbrook, an Environmental Health and Safety specialist with over ten years in the regulatory compliance and management system field.  He has helped several companies over the last several years achieve certification to ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, R2 and the RIOS standard.

The ISO 14001: 2015 standard was published September 2015 which means that companies have until either their re-certification or surveillance audit of 2018 (if it is prior to September of 2018) to successfully transition to the new standard.  The new standard has a heightened top management requirement called leadership and it might be more successful for companies to start the transition earlier than latter to the cutoff date.  We will write more about 2015 revision and best practices for the transition at a later date.

Without further ado, we first need to outline aspect identification and evaluation requirement:

“ISO 14001: 2015, 6.1.2 Environmental Aspects

Within the defined scope of the environmental management system the organization shall determine the environmental aspects of its activities, products and services that it can control and those that it can influence, and their associated environmental impacts, considering a life cycle perspective. 

When determining environmental aspects, the organization shall take into account:

1. change, including planned or new developments, and new or modified activities, products and services;
2. abnormal conditions and reasonably foreseeable emergency situations.

The organization shall determine those aspects that have or can have a significant environmental impact, i.e. significant environmental aspects, by using established criteria. 

The organization shall communicate its significant environmental aspects among the various levels and functions of the organization, as appropriate. 

The organization shall maintain documented information of its:

• environmental aspects and associated environmental impacts;
• criteria used to determine its significant environmental aspects;
• significant environmental aspects.

 Note: Significant environmental aspects can result in risks and opportunities associated with either adverse environmental impacts (threats) or beneficial environmental impacts (opportunities)” (ISO 14001:redline 2015(E), 6.1.2 Environmental Aspects, pages 11-12).  

There is a lot to digest here, so let’s take it step by step.

What is an environmental aspect and impact?

The first question that needs to be answered is what is an environmental aspect and impact and how do I identify them.  The second question is does my company even have environmental aspects and impacts.  Well, to answer the second question first, yes, even the smallest companies have environmental aspects and impacts.  They may not be significant, but they are present.  Now to the first question, what is an environmental aspect and impact?

To put in the simplest terms, an environmental aspect is something that can have an impact or effect on land, air, or water.  A BBQ restaurant using the finest cherry wood to smoke ribs is releasing smoke to the air, it may not be much, but it is still an environmental aspect.  A tax office that uses pesticides in the planters outside the office is having an impact on land, it may be slight, but it is present.  Finally, a trucking company that has a fleet of trucks come on and off the site can have fluids on the ground that are washed away into the storm drain during a storm and go to the ocean.  That has an environmental impact. Environmental aspects are also the consumption and production of resources.  A cellular phone store that keeps its store light on twenty-four hours is consuming a lot of energy.  A dish manufacturer is creating a product that will eventually go into the trash and occupy a landfill.  And the examples go on and on.  We hope it is evident that any and all companies have several environmental aspects that have impacts on the environment.

We recommend you refer to the Annexes at the end of ISO 14001:2015 for additional information and guidance. Annex A to the ISO 14001:2015 standard has very helpful information about identifying environmental aspects.  When implementing the standard, one should be living in the Annex.  It will help the organization to implement an effective and efficient system that follows the spirit and intent of the standard.  The Annex exists to assist in implementation and help with misinterpretation of the standard.

How to best identify aspects and impacts

Identifying aspects can be a daunting task, especially in a large organization.  ISO 14001:2015 standard, there is no longer a requirement for a person in the organization to occupy the management representative role.  However, the management representative should not necessarily be the one to perform the identification of the environmental aspects, even though that is what happens in a lot of situations.

A team of co-workers should identify the environmental aspects.  If the management representative does all of the identification they might miss certain aspects in areas in which they don’t work simply because they are not familiar enough with that particular process to identify all aspects.  Depending on the size of the organization, selecting a team that can split up the work and identify aspects in their own area is the most effective way of performing this required task.

Once the aspects are identify, one needs to score or evaluate them to determine their significance and place safeguards in the operation to control the significant aspects.  There are many ways to score aspects and all of the methods have some level of subjectivity.  It is highly recommended for an organization to choose a simple evaluation method of its environmental aspects.  This will benefit the organization by allowing the organization to focus on actually environmental performance rather than a complicated system of paperwork, documentation, and scoring.  One of the simplest methods is Failure Mode and Effects Analysis or FMEA where organization assigns scores for severity, frequency of occurrence and ease of detection of the potential aspect. We will write more about FMEA at a later article but if you simply search the internet for FMEA you will find lots of information.

Once the potential aspects are identified, the organization needs to review these aspects periodically or when a process(es) changes, new ones  are added or taken away, or when new control measures in place.   The best practice is to review of aspects on an annual basis or when any changes to the processes are implemented.

Difference from 2004

There are a few changes from the ISO 14001:2004 standard to the ISO 14001:2015 in regards to the environmental aspects.  Under 2015, the company is not required to have a documented procedure on environmental aspects.  However, it still may be beneficial for the company to have a procedure in place in order to ensure effective implementation.  ISO 14001:2015 has a requirement for record keeping or, in the words of the standard, documented information on environmental aspects.

Second, the organization should consider the life cycle perspective on products under the ISO 14001:2015 standard.  Before, organizations usually only considered impacts that occur on their facility, but now, the standard reaches further.  So one must consider the energy the product takes after it leaves the facility, the recyclability of the product, and other possible impacts on the environment.

Third, one must consider foreseeable emergency conditions.  Under the old standard, the identification of foreseeable emergency conditions was documented in the emergency preparedness and response portion of the standard.  However, some of these emergency conditions can cause severe environmental impacts.  For instance, in Southern California, an earthquake is always a foreseeable emergency condition, so hazardous liquids stored outside may tip over and drain into the storm drain.  Usually, companies have secondary containment for hazardous liquids anyway, but these types of situations must be considered under the new standard.

Lastly, the new standard states that organization shall identify risks and opportunities.  A multitude of environmental aspects may be risks because of the clean-up costs, the risk of regulatory violations and fines, and hazards to employees.  Defining these risks will help a company to better manage these risks, and that is the essence of the standard.  The annex notes, “The primary focus should be on the implementation of the environmental management system and on environmental performance, not on a complex documented information control system”  (ISO 14001:2015 Annex A, Guidance on the use of this International Standard, A.7.5 Documented information, paragraph 1, sentence 2, page 39 –All rights reserved to ISO 2015).

In conclusion, although identifying and scoring or evaluating environmental aspects is one of the most daunting tasks required by the standard, an organization that works together as a team and that uses the identification and scoring to benefit environmental performance will be able to successfully implement an effective Environmental Management System, reduce its carbon footprint and reduce long-term liabilities associated with its potential environmental aspects.

In the corporate world, there are many managers at every level of the organization, however, everyone at the top has a title to distinguish themselves as top management and senior management such as executive vice presidents, C-level positions, V-level positions, and so on.  However, in the “ISO” world, top management, regardless of title, have a commitment under Chapter 5.1 of the standard.  The purpose of this article is to discuss the importance of top level management commitment in implementation of management systems based on the requirements of ISO 9001 Quality Management System.

ISO 9001 Quality Management System Management Commitment Clause

ISO 9001:2008 Chapter 5.1 states that, “Top management shall provide evidence of its commitment to the development and implementation of the quality management system and continually improving its effectiveness by:  

1.  communicating to the organization the importance of meeting customer as well as statutory and regulatory requirements,
2.  establishing the quality policy,
3.  ensuring that quality objectives are established,
4.  conducting management reviews, and
5.  ensuring the availability of resources.

Top management must be able to show objective evidence to the auditor that they established the quality policy and objectives, conducted management reviews, made sure resources were available and that they communicated to the organization how important it is to meet customer and regulatory requirements.  This means that management; top management that is, must take a proactive approach to the ISO implementation and maintenance of the Quality Management System.  Top management can delegate training responsibilities to other personnel, but they should be instrumental in determining what training is needed, who needs it, and who is qualified to conduct the training amongst many other things.

Why Management Commitment is Important and Demonstrating Management Commitment

It is necessary and extremely advantageous to have top management that is committed to implementing and maintaining the management system.  After all, it is a management system. Yes, that does mean it is a way for you to manage your quality systems, it also does mean that the system comes from the management and trickles down to the rest of the organization.  As ISO 9001 consultants, GlenView Group, Inc.’s requirement is to have one or two first meetings with top management to help top managers understand the importance of this commitment. In my experience, when management is committed, those organizations have always been successful in implementing ISO 9001 quality management system and obtaining certification.  It is because management is ensuring that all functions at each relevant level of the organization are being completed and being completed properly and thoroughly.  However, in organizations where management is not committed, and only wants the certification as a piece of paper to please a customer or to gain a competitive advantage, these companies have not always been as successful.  That is often because management in those companies will tell those working under them to not spend enough time implementing the system.  So when management doesn’t view the implementation as important and a priority, then those working under them don’t have enough time to complete the successful implementation of a system or they too don’t care whether the system is successfully implemented.  Success in the few instances where the management was not committed was due in part to a management representative who did care and worked really hard despite what the management told them to do and/or A LOT of extra consulting that costs the company a substantial amount more than it would costs if management just committed to implementing the system in the first place.  GlenView Group, Inc. consultants including myself are most successful as consultants when the management is committed and when those who are delegated by the management to handle the daily activities are committed because implementation of a quality management system takes the cooperation of the whole company; it can not be done by a consultant who comes by once a week or once a month for a few hours nor can it be done by one person within the organization.  Management choosing the right person to be the “management representative” is often key to a successful implementation, but that topic is saved for another article.  Here, we will continue to discuss the importance of top management’s commitment.    

ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System and Importance of Top Management’s Commitment

Under ISO 9001:2008, if management commitment was important, under the newest revision ISO 9001:2015 quality management system (QMS) requirements, management commitment is even more important.  The newest reversion of ISO 9001 standard eliminates some of the titles, such as the requirement to name someone as the management representative, and although the title “top management” is still retained, leadership is stressed as well as commitment.  The words “demonstrate leadership” suggests that it is the intent of the ISO 9001:2015 QMS to have top management even more committed to the implementation and maintenance of the QMS.  In the management clause, 5.1, of the 2008 standard, the word “ensure” is used once, and in the 2015 standard it is used five times.  Furthermore, words like “engaging, directing, and supporting” are used to suggest top management will need to step up the level of commitment to the oversight and active engagement in the management system.  Instead of just establishing quality objectives and a quality policy, management must now ensure that the objectives and quality policy are aligned with the strategic direction of the organization.  This requires commitment because now the QMS must become a part of the decision making that goes into steering an organization in the planning and execution of company directives.  The new standard is really calling for a complete integration of the system into all aspects and areas of the organization.  Therefore, as mentioned above, a company where the management is not committed will certainly fail under the new standard.  There will be no more of the management representative hero who does all the ISO work for the whole organization or the expense of consults who need to come in to hold the hand of whoever is temporarily in charge of the ISO system.  There are definitely positive things that will come out of the more stringent requirements, it will enable the management to really control and guide the direction of the company and the quality management system in the most efficient way.  

The new process based approach of the ISO 9001:2015 quality management standard requires that for each process the intended outputs be being meet in order to achieve conformity to the standard.  Top management is in charge of ensuring that this happens, therefore, the quality of each process is now in the management’s hand in terms of showing conformance to the standard.  This will ensure that quality products and/or services are delivered or else the organization will not be able to show it has meet the requirements of the standard.  Organizations that embrace the new involvement will thrive and strive to continually improve.  Successful organizations already have the top management involved in these areas, so should those types of organizations decide to pursue certification or during the transitionary period from ISO 9001:2008 to ISO 9001:2015, the successful organizations will have no problem conforming to the requirements of the standard.  Moreover, these new standard requirements help GlenView Group, Inc. successfully lead our clients through the ISO 9001:2015 quality management system implementation process, improve business practices and lift the overall personnel morale within our client’s organizations.

No matter if an organization is implementing ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System (QMS), ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management System, AS 9100C Aviation Quality Management System, ISO 17025 Quality Management System for Testing and Calibration Laboratories, or Responsible Recycling, one common requirement is: Management Representative.  The purpose of this article is to define key qualities of an effective Management Representative using general QMS requirements as the baseline.

Management Representative Requirements

Clause 5.5.2 of ISO 9001:2008 is entitled “Management Representative.”  It states that top management shall appoint a management representative to ensure processes for the system are established, to report to top management on the performance of the system, and to ensure promotion of awareness of customer requirements throughout the organization.  The management representative must accomplish all these tasks despite any other responsibilities and tasks that they may have as an employee.”

The management representative is a very important, necessary, and required position within an organization trying to implement or living within a Quality Management System.  The management representative is like that coach of a team, they have their job and their assignments, but each player has their own assignments as well.  Furthermore, the management representative reports to top management like a coach reports to the owner of a team.

Management RepresentativeRequirements

Let’s look at the language in Clause 5.5.2 and break it down into sections.

“Ensure processes are established”

One the first things that need to be done when establishing a management system are to identify an organization’s key processes.  Certain processes may need to be added in order to conform to the requirements of the standard.  For instance, the receiving process may need to add a sub-process for control of non-conforming product/material.  It is the management representative’s responsibility to ensure that all necessary processes to conform to the standard are identified and established.  The easiest way for a management representative to identify and ensure that the processes are established for the QMS is to begin drafting the interaction of processes if one doesn’t exists already.  This is important for two reasons, first, it is a requirement of the standard and second, it will help to identify the relationship between one process to another process and how all the processes work together.

The interaction of processes will show how the requirements of the standard like the process of management planning which includes reviewing the policy and developing company objective among other things relates with the processes of say customer account management.  For example, a requirement of the standard is to assess customer satisfaction, so in management planning, one of the objectives may be to conduct customer satisfaction surveys.  This will be communicated to customer account management who will in turn create a survey, send it customers, get results and the management representative will report to management the results of the survey and customer satisfaction.  In that sense there is both an input and an output from both the customer account management processes and the management planning processes and that is how the processes are interrelated.  The interaction of processes is developing how all the processes are related to one another and how they are related to the requirements of the standard such as internal auditing, corrective actions, objectives, and so on.

“Report to Top Management”

As mentioned above, the management representative would report to top management about the results of the customer satisfaction survey so that management can determine if the organization is meeting their objectives.  However, the management representative reports to top management on a lot of other areas of the management system.  After an internal audit or external audit, the management representative would report the results of the audit to the management, this would likely be done in a management review.  However, the management representative may also report to top management when a new process is identified, when there is an area that is generating a lot of corrective actions, or better yet, when an area is excelling and generating a lot of preventive actions.  The management representative may even report to top management about changes or revisions to particular forms or documents in order to receive top management’s approval before the new document or new revision is released throughout the organization (this depends on the size of the organization and organization’s document approval procedure).  The management representative has the responsibility of keeping the top management up to date on the “health” of the system so to speak, whether the system is healthy or sick.

“Ensure promotion of awareness of customer requirements”

One of the key reasons for a QMS is to ensure that customer’s are satisfied.  Customers are satisfied when their requirements for a product or service are met.  It is the responsibility of the management representative to make sure the organization and each respective process know how they contribute to meeting customer requirements.  This may be through training that is conducted by the management representative or by each respective department head or process owner.  It may also be through internal audits or procedural reviews.  It could be through a demonstration of the interaction of the processes.  Customer requirements feed into customer account management and the output after the necessary service or products is made or completed is a satisfied customer.  Helping the organization and each respective employee figure out how they fit into the picture promotes this awareness of customer requirements.

MR Responsibility in small to medium size organizations versus large organizations

The Management Representative responsibility in a small to medium size organization might greatly vary.

Small to medium size organizations

In a small to medium size organization, the management representative will likely have another job besides being management representative  There is no right position which management should chose the management representative from, however, the management should chose the best person aside from their position for the job of management representative  This portion is true for both small to large organizations.  However, with that being said, the management representative is usually someone in the organization who has a job function that already relates to quality such as a quality control manager.   But that does not mean that a person must have a position related to quality, the person’s own work ethic and personal qualities are far more important.

During the implementation process, the management representative will likely be working close to half time for several months on getting the system implemented and ingrained in the culture of the organization.  However, one of the most important things that the management representative needs to do is ensure that the people in the organization understand their role in the management system.  Far too often, people in the organization can be misled into thinking that the management representative is the one that does the “ISO job,” but that is far from the truth.  As stated above, although the management representative may be the coach, each player has a play to run.

Shared responsibility

The most efficient systems are systems where the responsibility of implementing and maintaining the management system is shared not only by department heads, or process owners, but also by all persons throughout the organization.  When persons at all levels of the organization feed into the corrective action and prevention action process, understand the respective objectives for the process that they work on, contribute to revisions of procedures and work instructions when necessary, and when the organization sees the value of the quality management system, then the management system will truly work in the most efficient manner and one will observe continual improvement throughout the processes.  It is so important for the management representative to get this way of thinking ingrained in the organization during implementation, without it, the organization’s system will never fully flourish.

Large Organizations

In a large organization, the management representative should be a person’s full time job with a team working under the management representative. The definition of a large size company varies, but let’s just say for our purposes a large organization employs more than 500 people.  Overseeing that all processes in an organization that size are established is a full time tasks.  Furthermore, keeping records intact and in an easily retrievable manner is a challenge as well for an organization of that size.

A full time management representative at a large size organization might have a team working under them, and those persons may have several tasks such as conducting internal audits, issuing corrective actions, providing training, collecting data for Key Process Indicators, following up on corrective actions to determine the effectiveness of the corrective action, and many other tasks.  At a company that large, there may be one or two internal audits per month.  Granted, the internal audit is not going to be a full system audit, but only sections of the system like one or two or three processes a month.  Planning, conducting, distributing results, issuing corrective actions, helping with risks assessments and root cause analysis and so on will take some time and requires necessary resources.  That is why a full time management representative will likely have a sizable team working under them.

Management Representative’s Characteristics

There are many qualities and characteristics that would be advantageous for an organization should their management representative possess such qualities, however, there are a few that are quite necessary.

Multi-tasking –A management representative must learn to multi-task well and manage several different projects and tasks at once.  This is because the management representative is responsible for overseeing and ensuring processes are established for the whole organization.

Delegating responsibility –As mentioned above, the “ISO job” is not a one-person show.  Therefore, the management representative must delegate responsibility.  With delegating responsibility, the person who delegates must chose who to delegate to, when to oversee or supervise, and when the let go and let the person whom the task was delegated to run with the task.  If the team working under the management representative is not good and can’t handle to manage some tasks without supervision, the management rep’s task will become quite cumbersome.  It is a waste of company resources when a management representative has to spend a majority of their time micro managing others to get the job done, in those situations, the organization loses most of the value of having a management system in place.

 Assertive and self-motivated–As multi-tasking is connected to delegating, so is being assertive connected to be delegating responsibility.  A management representative needs to be assertive in order to hold people accountable and motivate people in the right way in order to complete the tasks that are delegated to them.  Furthermore, the management representative position is not a passive task; they must be involved and make themselves visible and known throughout the organization.  This takes a person who will stand their ground and not succumb to office politics, but will work with others to create a team environment of accomplishing tasks.  It is very satisfying to see an organization that embraces their quality management system and thrives in the system.  Usually, that success is highly due to choosing the right person to the management representative for the organization.