Standards to Protect the Environment: The Four Boxes of Compliance

摘要

Environmental regulations can overwhelm a small business. To ease compliance, ASTM International Committee E50 on Environmental Assessment, Risk Management, and Corrective Action has created an environmental compliance guide using the concept of boxes. As Richard Bolles, author of the career planning guide The Three Boxes of Life, used boxes to sort life stages, Committee E50 uses boxes to sort regulatory compliance. Boxes are sequential, based on immediacy and risk. So, Box 1 items are the highest priority and demand immediate attention because they have the highest environmental and business risk. The new standard, E 2365, Guide for Environmental Compliance Performance Assessment, was published in December 2005. E 2365 will help users set priorities and identify the most immediate compliance requirements. The priority system in the four boxes (called "tiers" in the guide) is drawn from general patterns in the enforcement practices of state and federal environmental agencies.