ASTM E2365-21

4.1.1?Small businesses or enterprises;

4.1.2?Service industries;

4.1.3?Federal, state or local facilities and regulators, including departments of health and fire departments;

4.1.4?Financial and insurance institutions;

4.1.5?Waste managers, including liquid and solid waste haulers, treatment, recycling, disposal and transfer;

4.1.6?Consultants, auditors, inspectors and compliance assistance personnel;

4.1.7?Educational facilities;

4.1.8?Property, buildings and grounds management, including landscaping;

4.1.9?Non-regulatory government agencies, such as the military; and

4.1.10?Specific industrial sectors such as dry cleaners, printers, photo processors, laboratories, health care, and vehicle fueling, maintenance and delivery.

4.4?Users may consider various benefits of environmental compliance performance assessment.

4.5?This guide establishes a framework of common, environmental risk management requirements in the United States and will allow the user to evaluate the potential level of risk from non-compliance. Compliance requirements would then be evaluated for pollution prevention opportunities in order to continually reduce the risks from non-compliance.

4.6?Noncompliance with Tier 1 Environmental Performance Standards represents the highest risk because Tier 1 Standards prevent, mitigate or respond to imminent hazards for human health or the environment. Tier 2 Standards address areas of significant risk, where noncompliance could result in penalties, primarily for failure to obtain required approval for releases or modifications to the environment. Tier 3 Standards require operation and maintenance of approved controls on releases or modifications to the environment, where repeat noncompliance could represent a risk. Tier 4 Standards represent the lowest direct risk from noncompliance; however, they are still important for documenting environmental management, the details of the compliance record, environmental compliance costs and pollution prevention measurements.

1.2.1?Use of this guide provides a system to evaluate the relative priority of compliance and pollution prevention activities. Unlike environmental management systems, it provides a framework to triage critical issues, based on consideration of actual risk of harm to public health and the environment.

1.2.2?Environmental regulatory requirements in the United States are administered primarily by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the parallel State and Local Agencies with similar regulatory authority. Certain other Federal regulatory agencies and State and local counter parts may also have legal requirements relating to environmental performance standards. Examples include the Departments of Transportation (DOT) and Agriculture (USDA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Similar to the ISO 14001:2015 standard, this guide uses the major groups of environmental regulatory standards in the United States for air and water quality, waste management, release prevention, and toxic materials use reduction, in order to organize the compliance analysis framework.

1.2.3?This guide derives general information about regulatory requirements from common elements of Federal, State and local programs, including statutes, regulations, guidance and policies. Since agencies may have overlapping authorities and different emphasis for particular issues such as waste management, the user should consult the applicable program for detailed interpretation of specific requirements in a particular jurisdiction.

1.2.4?Pollution prevention generally refers to source reduction as a preferred option as opposed to other less preferable alternatives, such as, re-use, recycling, treatment, or disposal/release. ISO 14001:2015 Clause 8.1 requires that consistent with a life cycle perspective, the organization shall take a number of actions as a part of operational controls and planning activities including establishing controls, determining its environmental requirements for procurement, communicating its relevant environmental requirements as well as considering the need to provide information about potential significant environmental impacts, inter alia. Further, ISO 14001:2015 Clause 9.1.2 explicitly requires that organization shall establish, implement, and maintain the process(es) needed to evaluate fulfillment of its compliance obligations This guide compliments and supports actions required under ISO 14001:2015 by establishing a well-documented process for environmental compliance performance assessment.

1.2.5?Pollution prevention is a specific term used in United States environmental compliance management programs. The term usually refers to source reduction actions. Unlike the term prevention of pollution, which is used in certain international environmental management standards, pollution prevention does not generally include end-of-pipe or top-of-stack control actions.