GEN 16 was originally published in February 1998, and was revised by John Todd in October 2003. This summary page includes the major changes included in the 2003 revision. The environmental management guidelines included in this Note are: Environmental Management Systems (EMS), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental Auditing (EA), Energy Auditing and Energy Analysis (Embodied Energy).
A suite of internationally accepted guidelines, or frameworks, is available to assist business to achieve best practice environmental management. The advantages of rigorously applying these guidelines include better buildings from an environmental perspective, less risk of environmental blunders or oversights, and good promotion. Also, some governments and large businesses now require them. The guidelines outlined in this Note include Environmental Management Systems (EMS); Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA); Environmental Auditing (EA); Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA); Energy Auditing and Energy Analysis. Many of these methods, available for several decades, have been constantly refined over this period and now provide well-accepted and sophisticated means’ of achieving excellent environmental design and performance.