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News | May 20, 2021

DLA Installation Management Richmond aces yearly environmental management audit

By DLA Installation Management Richmond DLA Installation Management Richmond

In 2005, Defense Supply Center Richmond, Virginia’s Environmental Management System was first registered to the international environmental management standard, ISO 14001. This standard specifies the requirements for an effective EMS. It provides the framework that an organization can follow, rather than establishing environmental performance requirements. 

An EMS allows the installation to care for the environment and prevent any negative impacts from daily work activities. To become registered to ISO 14001, an installation must pass a rigorous and detailed yearly audit that examines not only the location’s conformance with the standard’s numerous elements, but also its compliance with applicable internal and external environmental policies and regulations. 

DSCR’s implementation of the ISO 14001 was in response to Executive Order 13148. The EO mandates that environmental management considerations must become a fundamental and integral component of federal government policies, operations, planning and management. It also instructs all applicable federal facilities to develop and implement a formalize environmental management system.

Every year, DSCR’s EMS must undergo an external review and every three years, the entire system must be completely recertified. This year, the audit occurred May 5-7 and for the 16th consecutive year, DLA Installation Management Richmond successfully passed.  

Jimmy Parrish, chief, Environmental Management Division, DLA Installation Management Richmond, said passing an ISO 14001 recertification audit is especially tough. The impartial auditor looks through three years of historic data. More than 15 of our employees, including our senior management, were asked to explain and demonstrate their adherence to the ISO 14001 standard. Several hundred pages of written policy and regulations were closely scrutinized.

“A successful environmental management system is the epitome of teamwork. To pass these audits, all of DLA Installation Management Richmond, and our external partners, DLA Aviation’s Public Affairs Office and Richmond’s Defense Contract Management Office, pulled together to demonstrate what each organization was doing to protect the environment,” said Parrish.