Activities, Products, and Services - A catch-all phrase that was developed by Technical Committee 207of ISO, to capture all of the things at a facility or organization that can interact with the environment.

Environment - Surroundings in which an organization operates, including air, water, land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans, and their interrelation.

Environmental Aspect - Elements of an organization’s activities, products, or services that can interact with the environment. (The environmental aspect of an activity is that part of it that creates a possibility for an environmental impact. As such, it is equivalent to the concept of “hazard”, in Safety, which is also defined as the mere possibility of a negative event.)

Environmental Impact - Change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organization’s activities, products or services.

Environmental Management System - The part of the overall management system that includes organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes, and resources for developing, integrating, achieving, reviewing and maintaining environmental policy.

Environmental Objective - Overall environmental goal arising from the environmental policy that an organization sets to achieve and which is quantified where practicable”

Environmental Performance - Measurable results of the environmental management system, related to an organization’s control of its environmental aspects, based on its environmental policy, objectives and targets.

Environmental Target - Detailed performance requirement, quantified where practicable, applicable to the organization or parts thereof, that arises from the environmental objectives and that needs to be set and met in order to achieve those objectives.

Likelihood - Likelihood is a measure of how often an aspect can be expected to occur within an activity given the probability of its occurrence for each repetition of the activity and the frequency of the activity over time.

Organization - Company, corporation, firm, enterprise, authority or institution, or part or combination thereof, whether incorporated or not, public or private, that has its own functions and administration.

Potential Environmental Impact - The potential environmental impact of an aspect is defined by its likelihood of occurrence and likely consequences. It is equivalent to the concept of “risk”, in Safety, which assigns a probability and consequence to the possible negative event that may result from a “hazard.”

Significant Environmental Aspect - This is an environmental aspect that has or can have a significant impact on the environment, the organization, or to the mission of the organization.

Senior Management - That level of management that has executive jurisdiction over the EMS, including the full authority to allocate appropriate resources for its execution.

Page Last Updated August 8, 2007