Waste Industry part of Standardisation Review
Environmental update 05/10/2011
Could having ISO 14001 mean less enforcement by the
Environment Agency?
As part of the Government's plan to reduce the regulatory burden
on businesses, The British Standards Institution (BSI) has been
tasked with looking at whether standards could replace
enforcement as part of a "lighter touch" approach to waste
regulation. The project is known as the 'Standardisation Roadmap'.
The approach is designed to reduce the regulatory burden on
compliant businesses.
Objectives
The overall objectives of the project are to:
- Promote how achieving standards can provide a "high degree of
assurance" that a business complies with waste regulation
- Reduce the regulatory burden on compliant businesses
- Identify which businesses could benefit from 'lighter touch'
regulation with support from standards, certification and
accreditation
- Help the EA to focus on "poor performance and illegal activity"
rather than "well-managed" businesses
- And, work with industry to identify and realise cost savings
and other benefits.
Initially, the project will involve BSI conducting research into
standards, schemes and regulatory initiatives.
Among the issues it will look at are:
- Existing standards and how they either do or could support
waste regulatory compliance
- What other schemes exist to support compliance
- Where are "standards gaps"
- What standards could be developed for waste regulation
- How can standards support waste regulation and enable
compliance "effectively and efficiently"
- How effective are existing tools that advise permitting
- What specific compliance issues can standards address
- What cost savings and other benefits does industry believe this
can achieve.
High priority operations
BSI then plans to use the results of this research to engage
with specific parts of the waste industry. These, it explained,
would be chosen on the basis of criteria such as the amount of
waste produced, the amount of regulation they have and their
current use of standards and certification.
According to the BSI, these "high priority" operations will form
the topic of three industry-specific workshops which will be run
with aim of getting views from those directly affected by waste
regulations. The work will culminate in a report which will detail
findings from BSI's work and provide recommendations on the "way
forward".
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