It has been more targeted and valued the way that people evaluate their behaviors in society and its reflex in the preservation of the ecosystem. The environmental conscience develops an impactful role in the citizenship construction. The companies have a huge responsibility on this context, being severely legally charged for their environmental practices. Therefore, there are norms and laws made to regulate the environmental services form generators, collectors and waste disposals.

            The Environmental Management System is a set of politics, practices and technical and administrative procedures from a company, that has as a main purpose to obtain better practices development relating to the planet’s preservation. The EMS (Environmental Management System, SGA – Sistema de Gestão Ambiental, in Portuguese) approaches corporative actions in the search of equilibrium from men’s, industries’ and environment’s actions.

            This sustainable management model is based in five principles that must be respected by the companies:

1. Knowing what must be done, assuring the commitment with the EMS and defining for the environmental politics;
2. Elaborating an action plan turned to the attendance of the environmental politics’ requirements;
3. Assuring the conditions for the compliance with the objectives and the environmental goals and implementing the necessary tools for support;
4. Accomplishing periodical qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the company’s environmental compliance;
5. Capturing, processing and organizing the information about the generated, collected and disposed waste according to the environmental politics.

            Based on the ISO 14001 certification, the Environmental Management System, is a management tool that enables the waste organization and controlling, certifying the following of their life cycle in the environmental impact. An EMS provides a structured management approach capable of stablishing goals and generating metrics, like reports to the environmental inspection agencies.

Advantages on the Environmental Management System

            An effective environmental management done by companies that generate waste improves the management on the energetic, material and human resources, and it also strengthens the image of the company towards society, suppliers, customers and authorities, besides diminishing some risks of ecological accidents. Another advantage is the action planning, that provides a reduction and the elimination of risks and environmental responsibilities, besides the reduction on costs.

            After implementing the environmental politics inside a waste generator company, it is necessary to keep focus on the planning of the Environmental Management System. In this process it is possible to check the practices done on the business and the aspects related to the management. This way, determining what really impacts on the environment. With these data it is necessary to define the objectives from the EMS, in which each objective must have its goals established. On the other hand, the goals must be clear and quantifying, so that it is possible to have a comparison with the conditions that were done before the adoption of the Environmental Management System.

            Companies that have this system in their management have the capacity to avoid wastes and reuse materials that were before discarded, thus reducing their costs. The EMS shows up like a way to organize the environmental actions providing an efficient system to reach the goals and to become the management adaptable to changes. All these things to always prioritize the continuous and gradual improvement of the environmental actions from the organizations.

            The adoption of an environmental management is important to the company because it associates their image to the environmental preservation, improving the positioning of the brand’s concept on the businesses’ scenario, besides contributing with the sustainable idea diffusion.