790 Environmental Management Systems (EMS)

Step 26: Conduct Management Review

The EMS team should create a summary of the organization’s EMS performance and present it to top management. This gives top management the opportunity to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the EMS, examine opportunities for improvement and determine if the EMS needs to be modified to match the strategic direction of the organization.

At a minimum, management reviews should cover the following topics:

• Internal audit results
• Status of environmental objectives
• Adequacy of resources
• Opportunities for continual improvement
• Changes in significant environmental aspects
• Status of corrective actions
• Organizations should document management reviews, distribute meeting notes to the EMS team and send resulting action items to the responsible parties identified under Step 4 and Step 11.

Identifying Trends

EMS nonconformities and other system deficiencies, including legal noncompliance, should be analyzed to detect patterns or trends.

Identifying trends allows you to anticipate and prevent future problems.

Key steps to identifying trends include:

• Identify the problem;
• Investigate to identify the root cause;
• Come up with the solution;
• Implement the solution;
• Document the solution;
• Communicate the solution; and
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the solution.

Focus on correcting and preventing problems. Preventing problems is generally cheaper than fixing them after they occur. Start thinking about problems as opportunities to improve!

Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.