Environmental Aspects

What is an Environmental Aspect? It is any activity, product, or service that interacts or can interact with
the environment.

What is an Environmental Impact? It is any change to the environment, whether good or bad, resulting
from an environmental aspect.

What is a Significant Aspect? It is any environmental aspect that has or can have one or more significant
impacts on the environment.

All of these are determined by each individual facility. In order to aid each location in determining its
Environmental Aspects, Impacts, and Significant Aspects, AAM’s Level 2 procedure, AAM-E-401 Environmental
Aspects, describes our process in detail using the “Environmental Aspects Form – ENV14-100 rev2” which can
be found in Donesafe – Document Library – Forms & Checklists.

This form must now be reviewed, completed and signed off by yourself (EHS Manager/Representative) and
your Plant Manager by 31st March each year.

The Environmental Aspects Form is to be used at all AAM locations to determine aspects, impacts, and
significant impacts. This form has been audited by BSI and shown to meet the ISO 14001:2015 standard.

The ISO14001:2015 standard requires us to determine environmental aspects, and ultimately significant
aspects, according to the life cycle of our processes. This means that each location must identify primary
activities at each stage of our process life cycle and then determine the environmental impact of each of those
activities. In order to ensure that the primary stages of the life cycle are identified, the Environmental Aspects
Form is broken down in sections: Purchasing, Engineering / Design, Production, Labs / Testing / Inspections,
Packaging / Warehouse, Transportation, Product Usage, and End-of-Life.

Another requirement is to determine significant aspects based both upon the environmental impacts and
business risks. Again, the Environmental Aspects Form requires reviewing and documenting both the
environmental impacts and business risks for each aspect.

EMS Awareness – Feb 15, 2022

 Environmental Aspects

The goal of the Environmental Aspects Worksheet is to provide a repeatable process in the determination of
significant aspects for each facility while meeting all requirements of the ISO 14001:2015 standard.

In order to ensure environmental aspects are reviewed throughout the life-cycle of operations, the Worksheet
is already broken down into the appropirate sections. When completing the Worksheet, these sections can be
broken down further by individual departments at the facility or left as they are.

The first step, by department, is to identify work related activities within those departments that could have
an impact on the environment. From there, identify the environmental aspect of each activity. In some cases,
there could be more than one environmental aspect associated with a single activity. Once the environmental
aspects are determined for each activity, the aspects should be graded or rated under each category for
Environmental Impacts and Business Impacts.

The Risk Rating Tables, to be used when rating Environmental and Business Impacts, are detailed within the
Environmental Aspects EMS procedure AAM-E-401. Additionally, the tables to be used for scoring the
Likelihood or Probability of Impact are detailed within E-401 procedure. The Worksheet will automatically add
or multiple input scores to determine the Severity of Impact, Environmental Risk, Severity of Impact on
Business, Business Risk Score, and Total Risk Score. Please keep in mind the life cycle or process your aspect
represents when grading it for Environmental and Business Impacts. For example, purchasing coolant under
the Purchasing section (looking at raw material usage) will score differently than using coolant under
Production (using coolant directly).

After the Total Risk Score is determined for each environmental aspect, an Aspect Threshold number should
be determined and documented on the Worksheet. The Threshold number is the cutoff for which aspects are
considered significant or not. Usually, a Threshold number that would cause about 6-8 of the aspects to
become significant is common. However, the number can change depending upon requirements at the
facility or Total Risk Scores. Once the Threshold number has been documented on the Worksheet, any Total
Risk Score at or above the Threshold number will have an “X” appear (and cell will turn pink) under the
columnn Significant Aspects. This means those environmental aspects are now considered significant.

EMS Awareness – Feb 15, 2022