The Effects Of Emergencies
One of the underlying principles of the ISO 14001 Standard is the prevention of pollution. History shows that significant proportion of environmental damage occurs accidently.
ISO14001:2004 definition:
- The organisation shall establish and maintain procedures to identify potential for and respond to accidents and emergency situations, and for preventing and mitigating the environmental impacts that may be associated with them.
- The organisation shall review and revise, where necessary, its emergency preparedness and response procedures, in particular, after the occurrence of accident or emergency situations.
- The organisation shall also periodically test such procedures where practical.
The Purpose of Emergency Prreparedness and Response
- Minimize the risks of emergencies occurring
- Identify potential emergency situations
- Develop, implement, and test plans to respond promptly and effectively to emergencies
- Minimize the impact of emergencies on the environment
- Continually improve emergency preparedness and response procedures
P o t e n ti a l E m e r g e n c i e s
- Fire, explosion
- Gas leak, spill
- Natural disasters – lightning, earthquake, flood, extreme weather
- Tank, dam, equipment structural failure
- Electric power or gas cut
- Crash, collision
- Sabotage, vandalism, terrorist attack, riot, bomb threat, hostage incident
E m e r g e n c y R e s p o n s e P l a n R e q u i r e m e n ts
- First alert procedure
- Internal emergency communication structure – chain of command
- Emergency Response Team members’ responsibilities
- Internal, external emergency phone numbers
- Evacuation routes, assembly points
- Responses to various types of emergency
- Internal, external reporting requirements
- External communications – neighbours, media
- Restoration, remediation, disposal of clean-up materials
- Post-incident de-briefing of Emergency Response Team
- Incident investigation, corrective, preventive actions
- Emergency response training
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