Introduction
Do
you have a personal emergency plan? Probably not, but if you live in an area of
very high risk of e.g., earthquake, it is a good idea to have a procedure
regarding what to do in such situation. For example, your personal plan could
be to go in the smallest room, which is most resistant to collapsing, or to
fill a bathtub with fresh water because you can expect an interruption in water
supply; you may also need to set up escape bag in case of evacuation.
If
you own and invest in a small or medium company, or run an organization, and
have no emergency plan – you need to STOP & THINK about it. It is too
unsafe to lose everything overnight.
To
set up a crisis plan in a small organization you don’t need a Ph.D. in
ecological science – just follow these steps and don't stress if your plan
isn't great. You will improve it over time
Purpose of an emergency plan
The
aim of an emergency plan is to guide personnel in an accident or emergency
situation to prevent or minimize injury, damage and material loss. An
additional goal is to prevent environmental impact from the accident or
emergency.
ISO
14001 certification states in clause
4.4.7 Emergency preparation and response that the “organization shall
establish, implement and maintain a procedure(s) to spot potential emergency things
and potential accidents. The organization shall answer to actual emergency things
and accidents.”
It
is “good practice” for the emergency plan to determine major risks of
accidents, outline preventive measures and key personnel, list contact details,
confer with SDS (safety data sheet of dangerous substances), and specify
emergency instrumentation and response. It should be written and structured to
be read quickly and simply.
Explanation of basic terms
Before
going into the details, let’s explain some basic terms.
ISO
14001 Certification doesn't outline terms like incident, accident and emergency.
These terms are outlined and
used principally in OH&S (Safety at work).
The
Oxford English Dictionary defines “accident” as “an unfortunate incident
that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or
injury.” Consider that the first part of the definition is generic and also the
same in all cases, however the impact depends upon the particular scenario
(e.g., injury is said to safety at work, environmental harm is said to
environmental management, or a crash involving road vehicles is related to a
road accident).
The
definitions below aren’t official; they are simplified in order to explain
basic variations in terms associated with environmental incident,
accident, and emergency things.
Incident
An
unplanned, potentially harmful or damaging situation or event, not resulting in
environmental damage or other loss.
Accident
An
unplanned, most likely harmful or damaging situation or event, leading to
environmental damage or other loss.
Emergency
An
unplanned situation or event leading in involvement of the public emergency
services, police, or the environmental regulative authorities.
Steps in setting up an emergency plan
The
following steps will explain how to set up your emergency plan as per ISO 14001
and based on “good practice.” ISO
Environmental Certification is generic standard; therefore you should
customize it to your specific scenario and needs.
Step
1: Identification
You
have to identify the specific potential accident associated with your
circumstances and type of activity. If you run an office, a fire may be your
only potential risk.
Some
types of accident and emergency:
- fire
- chemical explosion
- spillage or release of
materials that are corrosive, toxic, flammable, or carcinogenic
Step 2: Prevention.
You
have to brainstorm together with your
personnel for preventive measures associated with to every type of accident. ISO
14001:2015 Certification states that emergency plan(s) shall include
actions to prevent and mitigate associated environmental impacts.
Preventive
measures depend upon your specific situation and may include e.g.:
Step
3: Emergency plan.
Depending
on complexness and needs,
the organization must establish one or more emergency plans.
An
emergency plan aims to:
- outline the categories and
environmental impacts (step 1)
- define preventive measures
(step 2)
- provide contact information
to key personnel (on-site & off-site)
- identify the location of
appropriate technical data and emergency equipment (site layout)
- highlight any special
instructions or actions
- identify and provide names
of people trained in first aid
Make
sure that all your staff knows about the plan, where to find it, and what it
contains. It is important that they know how to prevent accidents and
what to do in case an accident occurs. You should, as stated in ISO 14001,
review and revise your emergency plan where necessary, particularly after the
occurrence of accidents or emergency situations
The
Emergency Plan is not intended to be a comprehensive instruction with all
background information. It is a clear and simple operational procedure for
dealing with accidents.
Step
4: Training and drills (testing for training effectiveness).
You
have to train your employees about preventive measures and your emergency plan,
and you should include in the training plan all necessary background
information. Unfortunately, this is not enough, because in a real emergency
situation, people’s behavior is unpredictable. To be sure that personnel will
react according to the emergency plan, you have to, as stated in ISO
14001:2015 Certification, perform periodic drills based on predefined
scenarios. How often? That depends on the risk. For example, atomic submarines
have daily or weekly drills. Frequency of testing should be related to the environmental
risk of your site, staff turnover, the introduction of new processes or
materials, and conclusions from any previous exercises or incidents. For the
average SME, yearly drills will usually be satisfactory.
Step 5: Evaluation and improvement.
Drill
reports have to take into consideration gaps between the emergency plan and the
drill result. The output of the drill report should focus on closing gaps and
any other recommendations related to improvement of the emergency plan. For
example, you may notice during the drill that free access for fire trucks is
blocked by pallets for raw materials. You have to highlight this in the report,
followed with, as stated in ISO 14001, corrective actions for eliminating
cause(s) of incidents in order to prevent recurrence. What does that mean? You
have to find out why free access was blocked, e.g., due to the lack of
warning labels, or employee training, or something else, followed by actions to
prevent it from happening again in the future. With this approach, you will
continue to improve your performance over time, which is one of the fundamental
requirements of ISO
Environmental Certification.
Even
with the best preparation and prevention, accidents still happen. When they do,
you will be prepared and ready for a fast reaction to minimize injury,
environmental damage, equipment loss, and eliminate unnecessary calls to the
public emergency services.