Eco-mapping  the cool starter Kit

Eco-mapping provides small companies and organisations with a free, visual, simple and practical tool to analyse and mange their environmental aspects . Strait forward.

It involves collective brainstorming using a  map of an organisation’s site, e.g. a shop floor, a workshop, an office, a community centre to create an understanding of an organisation’s current environmental situation , practises and context. Step by step. Global. Local . Joint problem identification , action planning and communication !

Eco-mapping is an empowering toolbox  that helps to define and prioritise environmental problems and issues to act upon. Starting from the workplace. By the employees and workers . More consultation less consultants

Once completed, eco-mapping can serve as the basis for a wider environmental management system like ISO 14001  or EMAS

The toolbox is composed of

• Material flows and resource efficiency
• 120 second perception audits
• and step-by-step Ecomapping with 7 focused maps

1. Urban and global situation: situates your site in its wider spatial , legal and market context
2. Water: looks at your consumption of water and discharge of wastewater.
3. Soil: looks at the storage of flammable, dangerous or hazardous products and their use
4. Air, odours, noise, dust:looks at all the points of emissions and the functioning of equipment
5. Energy: looks at consumption patterns of energy and its impacts.
6. Waste: looks at management and prevention of waste and circularity
7. Risks: identifies risks of accidents , Health , Safety and Public health issues

How can you develop a environmental management and reporting system in small organisation with ten people and in ten days of work maximum and not producing more than 10 pages of paper which is compliant with the highest standrads  ?

Mission impossible ?  Non Try  ! EMASeasy

From Ecomapping to an environmental management system EMAS or ISO 14001

The challenge was to adapt the proven concepts of Eco-mapping into a certifiable EMAS and ISO 14001 without loosing the simplicity .The EMS process still had to be adult learning oriented and needs to be cost effective

The continuation of Eco-mapping and its transfiguration into a environmental management system required several new enhancements and improvements

This toolbox is called EMASeasy and contains among other features

• a new visual language to navigate in the requirements of ISO 14001
• Lean adapted ISO 14001 & EMAS templates to organize information in an recognizable way for external auditors
• FLIPO a small smart template to use the different information streams coming from Ecomapping to filter and  rank activities with significant impacts
• Environmental control panels to frame management reviews and internal controls
• The green logbook to record events documents communication and training
• The integration of internal audits, controlling, measurements, evaluating good Housekeeping and corrective action in one compact worksheet
• The one sheet of paper procedures of ISO 14001
• The micro environmental declaration

Time and costs

If a company has done some environmental work already in its own way the workload with Ecomapping to be in compliance with ISO 14001 is done within a week maximum

External document audits and site audits can be done within a day easily

The procedures required by ISO 14001 fit on a double page and most of the relevant instructions are oral and informal or visual.

The environmental declaration is compact and delivers the basic and really needed information.