DOI: 10.

1007/s00267-004-0190-y

Evaluation of Environmental Aspects Significance in

ISO 14001
NIS PO
DER
TO
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Tallinn University
25 Narva Rd.
Tallinn 10120, Estonia

ABSTRACT / The methodological framework set by standards ISO 14001 and ISO 14004 gives only general principles for environmental aspects assessment, which is
regarded as one of the most critical stages of implementing
environmental management system. In Estonia, about 100
organizations have been certified to the ISO 14001. Experience obtained from numerous companies has demonstrated

Within a corporate environmental management

system (EMS), the identification and evaluation of
environmental aspects and impacts is the first step
whereby a company begins to systematically consider its
environmental concerns. Furthermore, environmental
aspects play a crucial role in the formulation of effective environmental policy, definition objectives and
targets, thus laying the basis for the whole environmental management system. According to ISO 14004
(1996), the evaluation of the impacts significance can
be facilitated by considering environmental concerns
(scale, severity, probability, and duration of impact)
and business concerns (legal exposure, difficulty and
cost of changing the impact, effect on other activities
and processes, concern of interested parties, effect on
the public image of the organization). Unfortunately,
there is no further explanation for how these components of significance should be interpreted, nor are the
terms used compatible with those used in environmental impact assessment (EIA) and environmental
risk assessment (ERA). Despite the fact that since the
very beginning, the identification and evaluation of
environmental aspects have been regarded as one of
KEY WORDS: ISO 14001; Environmental management; Environmental aspects; Environmental assessment
Published online February 20, 2006.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; email:
tonisp@tlu.ee

Environmental Management Vol. 37, No. 5, pp. 732743

that limited transparency and reproducibility of the assessment process serves as a common shortcoming. Despite
rather complicated assessment schemes sometimes used,
the evaluation procedures have been largely based on
subjective judgments because of ill-defined and inadequate
assessment criteria. A comparison with some similar studies
in other countries indicates a general nature of observed
inconsistencies. The diversity of approaches to the aspects
assessment in concept literature and to the related problems
has been discussed. The general structure of basic
assessment criteria, compatible with environmental impact
assessment and environmental risk analysis has also been
outlined. Based on this general structure, the article presents
a tiered approach to help organize the assessment in a more
consistent manner.

the most difficult requirements of ISO 14001 implementation (Jackson 1997), the methodological issues
of the aspects evaluation have been largely overlooked.
On the one hand, this might be caused by the fact that
companies are largely reluctant to expose their sensitive environmental problems. As a rule, environmental
consultants and auditors facing this problem are restricted by the confidentiality requirement, preventing
a broader discussion. On the other hand, environmental practitioners might be discouraged by the
complexity of the problem and prefer the most pragmatic approaches, which also tend to be oversubjective.
ISO 14001 implementation guidebooks (e.g., Jackson
1997, Belmane and others 2002, Kinsella and McCully
2003) have taken a quite restricted approach to this
issue, each presenting just one assessment scheme
without discussion. Earlier, only Block (1999) had
made an attempt to provide a more general description
of the evaluation process, illustrated by some case
studies with different assessment schemes, whereas
Johnston and others (2000) proposed a risk-matrixbased approach. Recently, Whitelaw (2004) presented
five assessment models. However, none of them has
focused on the selection of assessment criteria or on
the comparability of impact assessment among ISO
14001, EIA, and ERA. Moreover, Zobel and Burman
(2004) have concluded that research on the identification and assessment of environmental aspects in the
ISO 14001 context is missing. At the same time, the
results of studies performed in US manufacturing
2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

Evaluation of Environmental Aspects in ISO 14001

Table 1. Characteristics of case organizations

Company

NACE No.

Personnel

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V

45
25
45
32
20
40
36
45
26
34
63
16
28
45
36
90
63
41
36
15
45
40

220
50
400
3200
230
149
115
70
345
800
111
150
104
4
200
19
740
350
138
124
38
2000

companies have revealed that environmental aspects

are being considered as the most problematic issue in
implementing ISO 14001 (Babakri and others 2003).
Serious deficiencies in aspects have been identified
also in Swedish companies, by Zobel and others (2002)
and Zobel and Burman (2004). Those authors,
accompanied by researchers participating in another
recent investigation (Ghisellini and Thurston 2005)
have also noted confusion in interpreting ISO 14001
and 14004 positions, regarding the criteria on which
the assessment should be based.
The first purpose of this article is to depict the
situation in environmental aspects assessment in
Estonian companies. The diversity and deficiencies of
methods are illustrated in the case examples. The
second objective is to contribute to establishing a
foundation for a common approach and help environmental practitioners deal with environmental aspects in a scientifically and pragmatically sound
manner. Therefore, an overview of the general structure of the significance assessment is presented. Finally, a generic tiered approach that could be applied
to comparative assessment of most types of environmental aspects is outlined.

Method of Study
In Estonia, ISO 14001 was adopted in 1998. The
current study is based on the experience gained from
22 Estonian companies that were adopting the ISO

733

14001 (1996) environmental management system

during the past 6 years. They belong to different
business sectors and groups of different size and they
operate in different regions of the country (Table 1).
The companies studied make up about 25% of those
that have obtained ISO 14001 certification. Thus, all of
these are reasons to assume that they present random
subset large enough for a qualitative analysis of the
population of certified companies. Therefore, methods
and problems in aspects significance assessment, observed in those organizations adequately characterize
the overall situation in companies adopting ISO 14001
in Estonia.
The majority of the information was obtained during third-party audits by investigating documented
procedures, interviewing employees involved in assessment, and checking the records of the assessment
process. Interviewing different persons enabled the
detection of differences in their understanding
regarding the assessment principles as well as divergences in interpretation of assessment criteria. Additional information was gathered, owing to personal
contacts with people responsible for environmental
aspects assessment in their companies (organizations
O, P, and Q). This information consisted of documented environmental impact assessment procedures
as well as comments on their application and interpretation.
Case Organizations
All organizations had defined and documented a set
of criteria they used in the assessment process. However, the number and combination of the criteria varied greatly (Table 2). The approaches of the
companies observed can be divided into two groups:
Group 1. Significance evaluation based on two criteria: severity and probability (frequency), measured
on interval scales of various range. Each scale level has
verbal definition, albeit very laconic, and the assigned
corresponding numerical score. Typically, the scales
used had 3 or 5 levels; occasionally they were extended
up to 10 levelsin 1 case even up to 100 levels. In the
latter case, the severity levels of 50 and 100 were
accordingly defined as a random and permanent violation of legal requirements, resulting in significant
pollution. The overall significance rating was obtained
by multiplying the assigned scores. This method is well
known as a basic approach in risk assessment (e.g.,
Seppa la 1994). Business concerns were implicitly included in the severity evaluation or left out. In general,
legal requirements were taken into account by making
a final decision about the aspects significance.
Interviews with the persons responsible for aspects
significance assessment demonstrated that the mean-

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V

+
+

+
+

+
+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+

+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+

+
+

+
+

+
+
+

+
+

+
+

+
+
+
+

+
+

+
+

+
+

+
+

1.Amount 2. Probability/
4. Severity/
6. Spatial 7. Temporal 8. Regulatory
11. Aspect
12. Influence on
Company of aspect frequency
3. Magnitude danger
5. Detectability extent
scale
status
9. Stakeholders 10. Economical controllabilitty other activities

Criteria

Table 2. Aspects assessment criteria applied in case organizations

Evaluation of Environmental Aspects in ISO 14001

ing of the term severity was interpreted differently,

especially when evaluating the difference between ratings, because its unequivocal meaning had not been
specified before or during the evaluation process. The
interpretation of the term became especially crucial
when aspects were evaluated independently in different structural units (e.g., I and J). Limited transparency and reproducibility of the evaluation process
seems to be a typical shortcoming of this approach. If
properly adopted, it provides much flexibility for the
evaluating team that considers all of the aspects significance influencing factors in a case-by-case manner.
Linking the aspects significance assessment to the risk
assessment based on the risk matrix is the experience
that the evaluators might have acquired during their
preceding practice. This does come in handy when
creating a coherent approach to the companies environmental impacts.
Group 2. In most companies, significance evaluation was based on the combination of 37 variables
from the set of 12 (Table 2). Each dimension of significance was measured on interval scales in the same
manner as shown earlier. To get an integrated evaluation of significance, the numerical scores were multiplied or summed up. Occasionally, qualitative expert
judgments were assigned to some or even to all of the
selected criteria instead of numerical scores (companies B and C). Only two companies under study had
tried environmental valuation techniques in order to
place monetary value on environmental impacts, like
costs related to atmospheric emissions and charges on
usage of natural resources.
As its main advantage, this approach provides a
framework for systematic and orderly thinking. However, one has to keep in mind that here the meaning of
the significance is precisely predefined by the choice of
the set of variables (dimensions). Therefore, usage of a
limited number of narrowly predefined variables can
easily lead to deficiencies in aspects evaluation. Basic
criteria such as spatial extent and temporal scale
were applied differently: Some companies (C, E, O,
and S) lacked one of them. Another shortfall of this
method is caused by vaguely defined and overlapping
criteria. Compared with the first group, companies in
the second group used the term severity in a narrower sense. Also, as in the first group, a clearly specified meaning in which the term severity had been
used was not provided. Sometimes the variables were
coupled: for instance, magnitude/extent and magnitude/severity, magnitude/legal requirements/stakeholders concerns (organizations B, L, and H).
Consequently, in several cases, the members of the
aspects evaluation team experienced difficulties in

735

explaining the logic of choice, meaning of criteria

used, and proof of the assessments results. Occasionally, they believed that there was just one right set of
criteria, as suggested by the consultants or picked up
from training courses at the beginning of the EMS
implementation process. Nevertheless, they admitted
that if the outcomes of the formal quantitative assessment were not seemingly adequate, some kind of
reassessment had to be conducted.
Almost all case companies had, in conformity to ISO
14004, declared that the register of significant aspects
shall be updated according to new activities. Especially,
construction companies can be involved in projects
that have passed the EIA procedure pursuant to legal
requirements. In EU countries, this is basically regulated by the directives (Council Directive 97/11/EEC
1997) and related legislation of member states.
Unfortunately, no case company had adopted a
scheme by which the EIA results could be incorporated
into the aspects assessment process. In the worst case,
they had no information about EIA results at all. Some
case companies (K and V) have performed risk analysis,
based on the requirements of the Seveso Directive and
local laws. The results had not been formally linked to
the aspects assessment scheme.
Considering the environmental impact, one has to
implicitly or explicitly refer to the affected objects
(endpoints, targets). Targets could be the elements,
influenced by the aspect directly (e.g., atmosphere by
the air emissions) or indirectly (e.g., lakes ecosystem,
influenced by airborne pollution stemming from air
emissions). In the latter case, atmosphere serves as a
migration pathway. In contrast to EIA and especially
ERA methodology, where the significance of indirect
impacts is clearly articulated and the formulation of
assessment endpoints has critical importance (Seppa la
1994, EPA 1998), environmental management systems
seem to be focused on direct impacts of nonspecified
targets. The main concern about this approach is that
it might not facilitate a sufficient capture of influenced
objects (i.e., endpoints).
The environmental impact can be the result of the
release of energy (e.g., mechanical deformation, noise,
radiation), substances (chemicals), or biological agents
(e.g., micro-organisms). Some assessment approaches
seemed to have been primarily focused on aspects
resulting in chemical pollution. In addition to the release, removing the substances (e.g., exhaustion of the
natural resources) can also lead to an impact. As a rule,
assessment of environmental impacts caused by the use
of energy or water appeared to be very subjective.
Results obtained from Estonian companies investigated demonstrate principally the same problems as

736

T. P@der

have been observed elsewhere. In their survey about

environmental aspects consideration in Swedish companies Zobel and others (2002) concluded that
assessment criteria used were seldom clearly defined,
the assessment process lacked transparency, and the
description of the impacts was often very brief. In a
more recent study, Zobel and Burman (2004) stressed
the great variability of aspects assessment methods in
Swedish companies: No two studied organizations used
exactly the same method. Ghisellini and Thurston
(2005) concluded that the methodology used in US
companies to assess aspects significance might hide
serious biases. This suggests that inconsistencies in
environmental aspects assessment seem to be a general
problem. Inadequate coordination between the
implementation of EIA and the EMS in construction
projects in China has been reported by Chen and
others (2004).

Dimensions of Significance
Significance in Concept Literature
Facing the aspects significance assessment, one has
to ask the following: (1) Are there certain criteria that
must be, directly or indirectly, taken into account? (2)
What kind of interrelationship exists between selected
criteria? (3) How is significance assessment within the
framework of the ISO 14001 environmental management system compatible with those in EIA and ERA. In
fact, case studies indicate that these questions have not
been clearly articulated. Moreover, the basic literature
about it is inconsistent.
The methodological framework set by ISO 14001
states that the aspects evaluation is primarily based on
their environmental impact assessment, whereas ISO
14004 provides that business concerns could also be
considered. The list of such concerns includes potential regulatory and legal exposure, difficulty of changing the impact, cost of changing the impact, effect of
change on other activities and processes, concerns of
interested parties, and effect on the public image of
the organization. As shown in Table 2, several case
organizations have included the criteria that ISO 14004
refers to as business concerns. ISO 14001 implementation handbooks and papers consider these concerns in a manner different (Table 3). Some sources
(e.g., Kinsella and McCully 2003, Ghisellini and Thurston 2005) proposed a set of criteria consisting mainly
of business concerns specified by ISO 14004. In contrast, among the nine criteria presented by Whitelaw
(2004), only two (legislation, future activities) could be
regarded as business concerns. Recently, Zobel and
Burman (2004) reported a deep disagreement between

different environmental managers and certification

bodies about whether business concerns should be taken into account in the assessment scheme. These
authors recommended excluding all of those criteria in
the assessment process.
ISO 14001 defines environment as a surrounding
in which an organization operates, including air, water,
land, natural resources, flora, fauna, humans, and their
interrelations. Hence, the terms environment and
environmental impact could be assigned a rather
broad meaning in the context of environmental management, encompassing both biophysical and socioeconomic environments as well as human health issues.
Incorporation of some socioeconomic issues is in line
with current EIA practice (Canter 1996). In the context
of ERA, risk perception by interested parties (objective
and subjective risks) has also been considered (e.g.,
Shrader-Frechette 1990; Pidgeon and Beattie 1998).
However, implementation of all socioeconomic
factors shown in ISO 14004 could hardly be justified.
As stated by Zobel and others (2002), there is no
ground to include the technical and/or economic
feasibility (e.g., difficulty of changing the impact, effect
of change on other activities and processes) in the set
of criteria. Moreover, these criteria will lead to biased
assessment results or the results might be misused.
Ghisellini and Thurston (2005) reported that these
criteria were used in the assessment scheme by a
company in order to reduce the overall score of serious
environmental impacts. One Estonian case company
also explained that the aspect with a high significance
score was revalued as insignificant because of the high
costs of the impacts reduction.
Among other business factors, ISO 14004 includes
legal requirements also. In fact, some of them, like air
or water quality criteria, set thresholds and refer directly to environmental impact, whereas others, like
reporting or labeling requirements, primarily address
authorities and stakeholders reactions.
According to ISO 14004 (1996), evaluation of the
significance of environmental impacts can be facilitated by considering spatial scale, severity, probability,
and duration of environmental impact. Thereby, the
meaning of the term severity is not explained. In the
risk analysis context, severity is given a rather broad
meaning, covering all dimensions of the consequence
(Seppa la 1994). In the EMS context, it has been given
various meanings; some authors have interpreted it as
toxicity (Johnston and others 2000).
The soft wording of the Standard allows interpreting the presented criteria as indicative ones, not as
a set of obligatory basic criteria. This appears to have
resulted in a diversity of evaluation criteria presented

737

Evaluation of Environmental Aspects in ISO 14001

Table 3. Aspects assessment criteria presented in concept literature

SOURCE
Criteria
Spatial scale
Severity
Consequence
Probability
Temporal scale
Regulatory status
Cost of changing impacts
Effect on other activities
Stakeholders/nuisance
Public image/community
Frequency
Amount of an aspect
Overall environmental impact
Controllability
Reportability
Past incidents
Abnormal
Lack of information

Block
(1999)

Belmane and
others (2002)

+
+

Kinsella and
McCully (2003)

Gisellini and
Thurston (2004)

Whitelaw (2004)
+

+
+
+

+
+

+
+

+
+

+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+

+
+

in concept literature. As shown by the examples in

Table 3, in one of the handbooks (Kinsella and
McCully 2003), frequency is presented as the only criterion of environmental impact significance, whereas
the most comprehensive set is presented by Whitelaw
(2004). Whitelaw has provided an alternative model
that also consists of two criteria (frequency of an event
taking place and quantities of material involved during
the event). As an extreme approach, he suggested
avoiding any scoring system: All aspects with any negative impacts are deemed significant.
It is easy to see that in some sources, the meanings
of the criteria used overlap, such as probability and
frequency (probability assessment largely rests on
the measure of frequency). Likewise, consequence
as a component of risk, and the criteria spatial scale
and time scale referring to impact are also overlapping, provided the term risk is not used in a very
narrow sense, not typical of risk assessment.
Some sources have presented amount of aspect
or quantity of material involved, among other criteria, implicitly assuming that the aspect is substance
based. Both of them characterize primarily the cause
(implicitly a chemical and merely quantitatively), not
the impact itself. Nevertheless, due to the correlation
between the quantity of released substance and the
caused effect, they could also give a rough indirect
estimation of impact. However, if quantity of substance is applied simultaneously with the criterion
severity of impact, overlapping can hardly be avoided.

+
+
+

Compared to original version, the revised ISO 14004

(2004) has adjusted aspect assessment in clause 4.3.1.5:
When establishing criteria for significance, an
organization should consider the following:
a) environmental criteria (such as scale, severity and
duration of the impact, or type, size and frequency
of an environmental aspect);
b) applicable legal requirements (such as emission and
discharge limits in permits or regulations, etc.);
c) the concerns of internal and external interested
parties (such as those related to organizational values,
public image, noise, odor or visual degradation).
As in the previous version, severity is interpreted
in the narrow senseit does not include spatial and
temporal scales. In contrast to the initial version,
probability is not associated with impact but with
aspect; in other words, probability of the effect is replaced by the probability of its cause. Despite a close
correlation between these two variables, they are not
identical. Keeping in mind that in the frame of EIA
and ERA, probability is defined as probability of the
impact, the new version of ISO 14004 does not support
compatibility with EIA and ERA.
The variety of assessment criteria could be justified
by the idea that there are no rights and wrongs for
aspects evaluation (Whitelaw 2004). However, if no
rules are followed, pluralism like this tends to alternate
with the idea of everything goes. Assessment criteria
can be defined differently and have a different gener-

738

T. P@der

alization level. Nevertheless, it is crucial to include,

explicitly or implicitly, all basic dimensions influencing
the outcome and to avoid overlapping. If these rules
are ignored, the assessment scheme will be principally
inconsistent.
Environmental assessment methodology has been
simultaneously developed in the frame of EIA, ERA,
and EMS. It is somewhat ironical that there seems to
have been a very limited dialogue between methodology developers, whereas many practitioners are actively
associated with all three areas. A possible psychological
reason for this situation has been presented by Scarse
and Sheate (2002).
The environmental management of a company
has to deal with the assessment of environmental
impacts in many different situtations. In addition to
the implementation of ISO 14001, it could also occur
in the context of mandatory EIA and ERA. From the
point of view of the ISO 14001 environmental management system, both EIA and ERA could be regarded as tools designed to focus on specific
environmental aspects: EIA deals with aspects related
to future activities, and risk analysis deals with aspects
related to emergencies. Prospects of EIA and
ISO14001 integration were discussed by Eccleston
and Smythe (2002). These authors concluded that
determining the significance of environmental impacts is a theme central to effective EMS, as well as
to virtually all EIA process. There seems to be no
reason why all environmental impact evaluations
performed or adopted by a company within different
conceptual frameworks could not be compatible.
Hence, the meaning of impacts significance within
EMS should be broad enough to incorporate those
of EIA and ERA.
Generally, the significance can be regarded as consisting of three major components:

Severity of biophysical environmental impacts

Socioeconomic variables

Probability of adverse effects

Severity
For a more detailed approach, severity of an environmental impact can be seen as consisting of four
basic dimensions (attributes):
Magnitude characterizes changes in measurable
environmental characteristics of components of
interest (endpoints/targets). Concentration of
chemical substances in air, soil, and water, populations, primary production, biodiversity, and human

health are examples of measurable variables. Magnitude is basically value-laden. First, the selection of
assessment endpoints is based on the recognition of
certain environmental values. Additionally, evaluation
criteria, such as the type of impact, are normally of
different importance. Thereafter, specific threshold
values could be applied to some variables. The larger
the magnitude of an impact, the more significant the
impact is, assuming the other significance dimension
being constant.
Spatial extent characterizes the physical area influenced by a particular environmental aspect. In some
cases, it can also be expressed as an amount of a certain
resource extracted or a quantity of affected individuals.
The larger the spatial dimensions (number of affected
individuals) of an impact, the more significant is the
aspect causing it.
Temporal dimension is presented by the duration and
persistence of the impact. For some endpoints, the
durations of the impact-causing aspect and that of the
impact itself are approximately equal (e.g., heavy
transport activity and the related noise level), whereas
other persist longer or can even be irreversible (e.g.,
noise-induced health problems, or damages of water
ecosystems due to the accidental release of waste water). Long-lasting impacts are more significant.
Importance. Components of concern (targets/endpoints) can be qualitatively different (e.g., humans,
wildlife populations, water resources, etc.) and carry
different values. This results in a need for an additional
value dimension reflecting their relative importance
(specific value of endpoints), which should be taken
into account when comparing the significance of impacts. The higher the value of the affected object, the
more significant is the impact.
The above-mentioned dimensions present the basics
of severity. If one or more of them were ignored, the
assessment scheme would be biased.
If appropriate, severity can be expressed in monetary terms. Some impacts, such as resource depletion
and environmental pollution, can be expressed as a
monetary value (e.g., environmental taxes, penalties,
and costs of redressing damages). More complicated
valuation methods (e.g., willingness to pay) could help
in considering other impacts. Certainly, one has to
keep in mind that the relationship between environmental impact and economic output contains much
uncertainty. Furthermore, economic valuation of risk
to human life is questionable, and nature also carries
values beyond the scope of monetary valuation. In spite
of it, monetary valuation reveals some estimation of the
importance that society ascribes to different environmental impacts.

Evaluation of Environmental Aspects in ISO 14001

Socioeconomic Factors
Socio-economic factors have a somewhat dualistic
nature. On the one hand, they can be regarded as an
additional value estimation applied to certain aspects
and impacts by society as a whole (expressed in establishing legal requirements to keep those impacts within
certain limits) or by specific stakeholders groups.
Thereby, the stakeholders concerns have a direct input
in impacts importance evaluation discussed in the
previous subsection.
On the other hand, socioeconomic concerns include a wide range of issues from the direct influence
on human health (noise, nuisance) to the specific
needs of diverse groups and communities. According
to Glasson (2000), these include economic (e.g.,
employment, housing problems) and sociocultural
(e.g., quality of life, community stress) characteristics.
Principally, the significance dimension highlighted
earlier could be extended to the socioeconomic impacts. Thereby, importance evaluation reflects the
perceived impacts, whereas other dimensions address
actual impacts.
Assessment of socioeconomic impacts is regarded as
an essential part of the EIA process and the corresponding methods are described in concept books
(e.g., Glasson 2000, Chadwick 2000). The simplest
measure is restricted to the coverage of certain issues in
media and to the stakeholders complaints. Some
consequences, associated with environmental impacts
or changes in market position due to the changes in
the attitude of contractors and the public, can be expressed in monetary terms.

Probability
It is set by the ISO 14001 that environmental aspects
should not be limited to normal operational conditions; abnormal and emergency situations must also be
considered. Further, predictions of environmental
consequences of any actions are inherently involved
with certain degree of uncertainty. Consequently, the
evaluation methodology should be basically probabilistic, even if in certain situations the deterministic
approach could be justified as extreme.
Probability of the occurrence of the cause addresses
the release of an agent (substance, energy, or biological stressor). In the most simplistic approach, the
probability of the cause can be divided into two components: human errors and equipment failures. Certain types of event, such as accidental oil spills from
railway tanks, are well documented and numerous data
provide he basis for a statistical approach to probabil-

739

ity, whereas a subjective expert judgment is the only

way to evaluate probability in many other cases.
Probability of the effect is primarily related to the
likelihood that a cause (e.g., leakage) will be detected
and mitigating actions applied. The subsequent fate of
an agent and the possible formation of indirect impacts can vary from rather simple cases to extremely
complex ecosystem processes characterized by multiple
and cumulative effects and feedbacks, which have an
inherently probabilistic character. Finally, the reaction
of measurement end points can largely be predicted as
a probabilistic event. The structure of the probability
can be refined, for instance using techniques like the
Fault Tree Analysis and Event Tree Analysis (Seppa la
1994, Winkler 2003). It is to be expected that major
aspects related to spillages of toxic substances are
subject to obligatory risk analysis procedure, using the
most sophisticated probability assessment such as the
Bayesian approach (Winkler 2003). In most cases,
probability is expressed in frequency terms (e.g., a
number of impact causing events per year).

Generic Approach
All case companies and concept sources applied the
predefined criteria to all identified environmental aspects. This was done even if the presence of legal
regulation alone was considered a sufficient condition
to classify an aspect significant (Johnston and others
2000, Belmane and others 2002, Whitelaw 2004). None
of the case companies and concept sources indicated
how impacts assessment performed in the framework
of EIA and ERA could be assembled to the EMS
assessment scheme. Here, a tiered decision scheme
could facilitate the evaluation process. With this approach, the evaluation occurs in a series of steps of
increasing complexity.
Tier I
Predefined conditions are applied to screen out
significant aspects at an early stage of the assessment
process. Typically, three criteria could be applied:
1. Violation of legally established emission conditions
or ambient air or water quality standards (in a more
strict approach, the existence of legally set emission
or quality standards could be regarded as a sufficient
condition)
2. Aspects involved in significant environmental impacts identified in the EIA process performed
according to valid legislation
3. Aspects involved in significant effects identified in
risk analysis performed according to valid legislation

740

T. P@der

In contrast to the common approach, distinction is

made between different types of regulatory requirement. Here, legal regulations of directly related environmental impact are considered. An assessment of
environmental aspects alongside other legal obligations, like reporting requirements, could continue in
Tier III.
Compared to the impact assessment procedure
within ISO 14001, the assessments performed in the
frame of ERA and especially in EIA implement more
sophisticated methods and public participation. As a
rule, EIA is performed by an interdisciplinary environmental professional team. Hence, these are sufficient reasons to include significant impacts and related
aspects detected in EIA and ERA immediately into a list
of significant aspects within EMS.
Keeping in mind that many impacts, especially those
involved in large-scale cumulative effects, are covered
by legally established emission or quality limits and
undergo the EIA and ERA procedure, a substantial
fraction of aspects could be qualified as significant
without further procedures.
Tier II
Aspects evaluation will be continued according to
the following formula, expressing significance as risk
estimation:
AS SP ;
where AS is the aspects significance, S is the severity of
impact expressed in monetary terms, and P is the
probability that the impact with severity S will arise.
Severity is based on the current costs of existing
impacts a company has to spend on the consumption
of natural resources. Related information is available in
every organization. Experience with case companies
suggests that environmental impacts caused by energy
and water consumption or extraction of mineral ores
are the most difficult to assess directly. Ranking impacts according to cost rests on the assumption that
there is a correlation between them. No doubt, price is
a function of several factors, like taxes and market situation, and their correlation with related environmental impact contains a great deal of uncertainty.
Failure to consider different factors brings major limitations to this approach. Despite these difficulties, this
method seems to have a certain objective ground, and
related uncertainty does not seem to exceed that of
subjective judgment, at least in some situations. This
tier could also consider some potential impacts related
to abnormal conditions or emergencies, if they are not
screened out already in Tier I.

Professional judgment can be used in evaluating

probability in scale from 0 (impossible) to 1 (for sure,
in the case of actual costs). Aspects assessed in such a
manner are ranked according to their relative importance. It is up to each organization to decide where to
draw the border of significance. Conceptually, this
could be related to turnover or profit. Alternatively, the
most expensive ones could just be defined as significant ones. Aspects that are not qualified as significant due to a low score or lack of adequate monetary
expression of impact will proceed to Tier III.
Tier III
In this tier, significance will be estimated as follows:
AS SP SEU ;
where AS is aspects significance, S is the severity of
impact, P is the probability that the impact with severity
S will arise, SE is the socioeconomic factors, and U is
the uncertainty.
Here, the significance assessment is based on three
components. The first, as in Tier II, is risks assessment
(expressed through the impacts severity and probability). However, here, severity is not expressed in
monetary terms but expert estimations based on
available information. In contrast to the common approaches observed in case companies and the concept
literature above, risk estimation is separated from
other criteria. Thereby, the term severity covers all
dimensions considered in the section Dimension of
Significance. A key implication here is that the vagueness of this term and the related drawbacks noted in
case companies and concept literature are avoided.
This approach is consistent with the conventional risk
analysis and supports compatibility across different
tiers.
The severity assessment requires the ability to
analyze and combine different information, and judgment, across scientific disciplines. This could be a rather hard task for an assessment team. As noted by
Zobel and Burman (2004), the qualifications of environmental managers can be inadequate to fulfill this
task. However, as noted in previous sections, in fact all
these components of risk already have been in use as
significance criteria, even in a rather unsystematic
manner. Hence, this approach does not require additional knowledge or skills per se; it might only make
deficiencies more visible and address them as uncertainties. Usage of tailored predefined scales for all
attributes can aid in systematizing significance assessment. Furthermore, the numerical scores assigned to
each attribute are converted into a common dimension
of severity (bottom-up approach). The attribution of

Evaluation of Environmental Aspects in ISO 14001

impact might result from reported incidents or as the

result of studies designed to elucidate the effect. Data
sources and the weighting of impact evidences are
beyond the scope of the current article.
The second component of significance consists
of various socioeconomic (business) factors. Based on
the definition (ISO 14001 1996) a significant environmental aspect is an environmental aspect that has
or can have a significant environmental impact, one
can conclude that this component is of secondary
importance. Factors like regulatory status, stakeholders concerns, and aspects controllability could be involved in this component. This list is only indicative
and could be extended according to the conditions
under which the organization is operating. In contrast
to the first component, which reflects objective (however, some value estimation is inevitable here, as
demonstrated earlier) risk, the second component refers to subjective risk and value estimation (risk perception) of interested groups outside of the company.
The importance of stakeholders opinions in environmental matters is growing and this component stresses
partnership. Therefore, even if the available data do
not demonstrate a significant risk level, high stakeholders concern can be a sufficient reason to qualify
an aspect as significant. The number and the character
of inquiries and media statements could be the first
source of information, whereas an in-depth study involves professional consulting.
According to ISO 14001, environmental aspects of
the company can be only those that it can control. In
practice, there is not, necessarily, a sharp border between controllability and uncontrollability, but a
gradual transition. For example, a company cannot
have direct control over a contractors aspects; however, it can usually choose contractors and prefer those
with better control. It should be recognized that a decrease of controllability results in a decrease of aspects
significance (for that particular company). Consequently, high-risk-level aspects could be qualified as
insignificant if an organization has very limited
control over them.
Each of the factors involved in the quantification of
the SE factor could be assigned numerical scores,
which will be summed up to get an overall correction
of significance. Thereby, aspects controllability scores
could have negative values if an aspect is only partially
controlled by the organization.
The third componentuncertainty helps to avoid
underestimation of risks due to limited available information. Environmental aspects significance assessors
have to make their decisions based on available limited
information and, therefore, uncertainty is inherent to

741

aspects significance assessments. There are three general types of uncertainty in ERA (Asante-Duah 1998) that
could be extended also to the aspects significance
assessment procedure: (1) parameters uncertainties,
caused by limited or inadequate parameters values; (2)
modeling uncertainties, stemming from models deficiencies used for environmental effects predictions, and
(3) completeness/scenario uncertainties related to what
might have been omitted by effect analysis. In fact, aspects significance assessment rarely uses sophisticated
quantitative impact models and evidence analysis.
Hence, availability and quality of environmental data
and professional judgment limitations seemingly address the main sources of uncertainties in this area.
Missing indirect effects and ill-defined assessment end
points referred to in the section Case Organizations
supports this idea. In any case, one should at least provide an estimate of uncertainty on a scale (low, moderate, high, etc., and corresponding scores) and identify
the most important sources of uncertainty. Quantification of uncertainty refers to the areas in which additional
study could be most effective.

Management Implications
The organization must control its significant environmental aspects. However, measures and priorities
in handling different significant aspects could vary
greatly and the use of the tiered assessment approach
facilitates their systematic handling.
Compliance with legal requirements considered in
Tier I is an imperative and aspects causing (having
potential to cause) such noncompliances are threatening the existence of an organization. Thus, significant environmental aspects screened out in Tier I must
be regarded as of highest priority.
Significant environmental aspects from Tier II address economical effects to the organization. They
influence the health of the organization and, as
extreme, might become existential. Many of them are
related to resource consumption and directly indicate
directions where to save money. Improvements in
those fields might be most cost-effective and, consequently, most attractive to the management.
Significant environmental aspects derived from Tier
III are different and address different management
measures. The first component, risk level, refers to the
management measures directed to decrease the environmental impacts (risks), whereas the second component indicates the need for better communication.
Finally, the high uncertainty score can be reduced if
additional information is obtained, so that more confidence can be put in risk-level estimation. Hence, the

742

T. P@der

latter component encourages companies to obtain

better knowledge of their environmental risks.
Generally, different tiers are related to different
driving forces of environmental management: Tier I
involves the command and control approach, Tier II
refers to the economical tools, and Tier III reflects the
organizations environmental awareness.

Conclusion
This article presents evidence that companies
implementing ISO 14001 experience significant difficulties in adequate and reproducible assessment of
their environmental aspects. Some of them are based
on simple, basically intuitive expert risk assessment.
Most companies have adopted a formal assessment
scheme that can sometimes be rather complicated. The
increased intricacy of the evaluation process has not
revealed the expected increase in reproducibility and
objectivity of assessment results. The general weaknesses seem to be (1) ill-defined and unsystematically
adopted assessment criteria and (2) lack of a clear
scheme for adopting the results of EIA and ERA. A
tiered assessment scheme with the more precisely defined criteria presented here could provide a rational
basis for aspects assessment while avoiding the abovementioned drawbacks. At the same time, the conclusions drawn are easy to interpret and they contribute to
systematic handling of environmental issues.

Acknowledgments
The author thanks Det Norske Veritas Tallinn Ltd.
and Metrosert Ltd. for making this work possible, as
well as the anonymous auditees for their kind cooperation during ISO 14001 audits.

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