Enhancing Environmental Performance Through Common Process From 20 EMS's To One

摘要

BP Group requires all major operating sites to be verified to the ISO14001 international standard. In 2001 BP Exploration and Production North Sea operations had 20 sites with individual Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) certified by different verifiers with different approaches. There was little consistency or knowledge sharing. Following a series of reorganisations and rationalisation, by 2003 there were seven verified EMSs across the UK, Norway and Netherlands. Restructuring of assets rendered this arrangement unsustainable therefore in 2005 the project to consolidate the assets’ EMSs began in earnest. The BP organisation philosophy is for the business to utilise common processes. This project evaluated the EMS structures within the UK, Norway and Netherlands with the objective to identify and implement the most effective way to deliver consistency and further continuous environmental improvement. The project followed a BP internal project process, engaged key individuals, including Norway and the Ne therlands and sought input from BP Group, regulators and other operators. The decision was taken to move to country specific EMSs as this was the simplest option to implement and maintain, given language, legislation and contractor capability. The implementation began on completion of a management of change exercise. At this point the major focus of the project was to transform the existing EMSs operating in the UK into one and find a suitable verifier: The requirement was that they should have existing organisational capability for the range and location of BP UK assets with personnel qualified for both onshore and offshore activities and be experienced in using a risk based approach. Several companies tendered and following evaluation a verifier was selected for their alternative approach. At the same time work was ongoing to simplify and rationalise the EMS documentation and improve its accessibility, resulting in a high level framework with limited site specific requirements. Following a period of intensive internal and external auditing the UK North Sea EMS was certified to ISO14001 in November 2006.