An Environmental Management System (EMS) is a type of management tool to enable an organization of any size or type to control the impacts of its activities, products or services on the environment. An EMS represents a structured approach to to setting environmental objectives and targets, to achieving these and demonstrating that they have been achieved. Essentially, the EMS requires organizations to have in place the mechanisms, policies and structure to comply with environmental legislation and regulations and allow for ongoing evaluation of such mechanisms, policies and structure with the objective of continual improvement.
Canfor's EMS has been developed and certified to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 standard, which means that Canfor has provided objective audited evidence that its system is operating effectively in conformance with the standard.
To achieve the ISO 14001 standard, Canfor's EMS achieved the following:
- Established appropriate environmental policy including a commitment to pollution prevention
- Defined legislative requirements and environmental aspects associated with its activities, products and services
- Developed management and employee commitment to the protection of the environment, with a clear assignment of accountability and responsibility
- Encouraged environmental planning throughout the full range of the organization's activities
- Established a disciplined management process for achieving targeted performance
- Provided appropriate and sufficient resources, including training, to achieve targeted performance levels on an ongoing basis
- Established and maintain an emergency preparedness and response program
- Established a system of operational control and maintenance of the program to ensure continuing high levels of system performance
- Evaluated environmental performance against the policy and objectives and targets and sought improvement where appropriate
- Established a management process to review and audit the EMS and to identify opportunities for improvement
- Established and maintained appropriate communication with internal and external interested parties