ISO14001 accreditation for UK’s leading water treatment company
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
VWS (UK) Ltd, which incorporates the UK’s leading water and wastewater treatment companies Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies and ELGA Process Water, has gained full ISO14001 accreditation of its Environmental Management System.
Bob Snowden, Business Systems Manager for ELGA Process Water, has been working since 2006 with a project team drawn from all of the VWS divisions to implement the management system and achieve accreditation. This was awarded following a detailed audit of all five of VWS’s UK sites by Lloyds Register Quality Assurance (LRQA).
ISO 14001 is the internationally recognised standard for environmental management systems and defines processes and procedures which assist a business to identify the aspects of its operations that affect the environment, allowing it to assess their impact on the environment and control and reduce those impacts.
VWS (UK) Ltd decided to seek accreditation and set up a team of specialists with representatives from all the company’s sites. The team assessed the company’s activities and developed and implemented systems to control and reduce their affects on the environment.
Bob Snowdon said
“This accreditation demonstrates to our customers and the public that we have taken responsibility for our environmental impact. For example waste from our process is minimised and wherever possible recycled or reused”
Relatively few companies in the water treatment field have acquired ISO14001 accreditation. Bob Snowdon continued
“This is a really important for us but it’s just the first step. We’ll continue to develop our systems, monitored by six-monthly audits by LRQA, to ensure the continuing improvement of the company’s environmental performance.”
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