Last updated 6 October 2026
An environmental aspect is a part of your activities, products or services that interacts with the environment, such as effluent from a wash line or smoke from a boiler. An environmental impact is the change that interaction causes, such as a polluted stream or poorer air. The aspect is the cause and the impact is the effect. ISO 14001:2026 clause 6.1.2 asks you to determine both.
The question I ask first on any site walk is not about clauses. I stop beside a drain and ask the nearest supervisor where the water goes. At a packhouse in the Sundays River Valley, the honest answer was “I don’t know, the river I suppose”, and that one sentence told me more about the site’s aspects than its whole register.
If your team cannot answer the drain question, start here. Introduction to ISO 14001:2026 teaches supervisors and QA staff to name the significant aspects of their own job and the controls that go with them, with a quick aspect or impact game between modules. About 6 hours, R1 495, on any phone.
What is the difference between an aspect and an impact?
The aspect is what your site does that touches the environment. The impact is what happens to the environment as a result. One aspect can cause several impacts, and the impact can be adverse or beneficial.
The easiest test I know is to put the word “because” between them. Fish in the stream die (impact) because caustic CIP water reached the stormwater drain (aspect). If the sentence reads backwards, you have them the wrong way round.
People confuse the two in three common ways. They write the activity instead of the aspect (“cleaning”), which is too vague to control. They write the impact in the aspect column (“pollution”), which tells nobody what to do. Or they write a legal requirement (“effluent permit”), which is a compliance obligation, a different thing that clause 6.1.3 deals with. A good aspect names the thing leaving, entering or being used: caustic effluent, diesel exhaust, cardboard waste, municipal water.
Beneficial impacts count too. Sending used cooking oil to a licensed recycler is an aspect with a beneficial impact, because the oil becomes a resource instead of a drain blockage.
What categories of environmental aspects should you look for?
Annex A of ISO 14001:2026 gives a checklist of nine categories. It is guidance, not a requirement, but it is the list I walk a site with because it stops you missing the quiet aspects.
- Emissions to air: boiler stacks, generator exhaust, refrigerant leaks, dust, odour
- Releases to water: trade effluent to sewer, stormwater runoff, wash water
- Releases to land: spills on unpaved yards, leaking drums, sludge
- Use of raw materials and natural resources: water, packaging, ingredients, chemicals
- Energy use: electricity, diesel, LPG
- Energy emitted: heat, noise, vibration, light at night
- Waste and by-products: general, hazardous, food waste, used oil
- Use of land: expansions, storage on open ground
- Use of marine and coastal areas: relevant to coastal processors and fisheries
Run each category against each area of the site, from receiving to dispatch, and you will rarely miss anything big. The aspects most often missed on food sites are energy emitted (night lights and compressor noise next to houses) and abnormal releases such as the first flush of a blocked grease trap.
What do aspects and impacts look like on South African food sites?
On food sites the same handful of aspects come up again and again: water, effluent, combustion, refrigerants, chemicals, packaging and food waste. What changes from site to site is which of them is significant.
The examples below come from the three case sites used in the ASC course: Mzansi Fresh Meals, a ready meals plant in Nelson Mandela Bay, Sundays Valley Citrus, a citrus packhouse, and Ubuntu Grill Group, 14 restaurants in Gauteng. They are training scenarios built from real audit patterns, not real companies.
| Site and activity | Aspect (cause) | Impact (effect) | Typical control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ready meals plant: CIP cleaning | Caustic and acid effluent to sewer | pH shock that upsets treatment at the municipal works | pH dosing and monitoring before discharge |
| Ready meals plant: steam boiler | Diesel combustion emissions | Particulates and gases in local air, climate change | Burner servicing, smoke checks, fuel records |
| Ready meals plant: refrigeration | Ammonia release from a leak | Harm to people and aquatic life if it reaches the stream | Leak detection, maintenance, emergency plan |
| Citrus packhouse: drench and wax line | Fungicide wash water | Contamination of soil and groundwater | Contained collection and approved disposal |
| Citrus packhouse: water supply | Borehole abstraction | Lower groundwater for neighbours and ecosystems | Metered use within the authorised volume |
| Citrus packhouse: dispatch | Plastic and cardboard packaging waste | Landfill use, litter | Separation for recycling, supplier take-back |
| Restaurant group: kitchens | Fats, oils and grease to drain | Sewer blockages and overflows | Grease trap cleaning schedule, oil collection |
| Restaurant group: cold rooms | Refrigerant leaks | Ozone depletion or climate change, depending on the gas | Leak checks by a qualified technician |
| Restaurant group: load-shedding | Generator diesel use and exhaust | Air pollution, noise for neighbours, fuel spills | Drip trays, noise screens, refuelling procedure |
Notice that none of these are exotic. That is the point. The aspects that hurt food businesses are ordinary ones that nobody owned.
Do abnormal and emergency conditions count as aspects?
Yes. Clause 6.1.2 asks you to take into account normal and abnormal conditions, change, and potential emergency situations. Determining potential emergencies now sits in 6.1.2 and links to emergency preparedness in 8.2.
Normal is the line running as designed. Abnormal is start-up, shutdown, breakdown, maintenance and cleaning. Emergency is the event you hope never happens. On a ready meals plant the boiler at full load is a normal aspect. The black smoke during a cold start after load-shedding is an abnormal one, and it is the one the neighbours complain about. The ammonia leak is the emergency.
Annex A also points out that adverse environmental conditions can push an aspect up. Heavy rain turns a dusty yard spill into a stormwater release. A heatwave stresses the refrigeration plant. Annex A is guidance, not a requirement, but auditors use it to read intent, so expect the question.
Change belongs here too. A new product line, a different cleaning chemical or a second generator brings new aspects, and clause 6.3 now asks you to plan such changes. The emergency side, from spill kits to NEMA section 30 reporting, is covered in ISO 14001 emergency preparedness and response.
Your supervisors run the start-ups, the breakdowns and the 2am cleaning shifts, so they see the abnormal aspects first. Give them the words for it: enrol your team in Introduction to ISO 14001:2026, 21 lessons in about 6 hours, R1 495 each, with team rates from five learners.
What does a life cycle perspective mean for aspects?
It means looking beyond your fence at the stages before and after your own operations: raw materials, design, transport, use by the customer and disposal at end of life. ISO 14001:2026 does not require a full life cycle assessment.
The 2026 edition puts a note into clause 6.1.2 that lists the stages. For a food business the upstream stage is often the biggest: the water used to grow the citrus, the packaging a supplier chooses. The downstream stage is what happens to your packaging in the consumer’s bin, which is also where the Extended Producer Responsibility Regulations under the Waste Act come in for paper and packaging.
You do not control those stages, but you can influence them. Clause 6.1.2 asks for aspects you can control and those you can influence. A restaurant group cannot run its supplier’s farm. It can choose packaging that is recyclable in Gauteng and tell its suppliers what it expects.
How do you find the aspects in your own job?
Walk your own area as if you were the auditor, list what goes in and what comes out, then ask what happens on a bad day. Most supervisors can list the main aspects of their area in under an hour once they know the categories.
- Draw your area as a box. List everything that comes in: water, power, fuel, chemicals, ingredients, packaging.
- List everything that leaves: product, effluent, emissions, noise, heat, waste of every kind.
- For each item, write the aspect in a few words and the impact after the word “because”.
- Repeat for start-up, shutdown, cleaning and breakdown.
- Ask what could go badly wrong: a spill, a leak, a fire, a flood. Those are your potential emergencies.
- Check your list against the site register and tell your SHEQ coordinator what is missing.
That list is the raw material for the site register. Deciding which aspects are significant is the next step, and it needs an agreed method with criteria. That method, with scoring and worked examples, is in how to build an aspects register with significance scoring and in the ISO 14001:2026 Understanding and Implementation course, where you build your own register with significance criteria (about 24 hours, R4 800).
Once significance is decided, clause 6.1.2 asks you to communicate the significant aspects among levels and functions. That is where the people on the floor come back in. Under clause 7.3 b) everyone doing work under your control must be aware of the significant aspects and impacts linked to their work. The auditor will test that by asking them, which is why I spend so much time with supervisors. The interview side is covered in ISO 14001 awareness training, and all four ASC courses are on the ISO 14001 training page. Not sure which ISO 14001 course fits your job? WhatsApp ASC on +27 61 483 0381.
Frequently asked questions
What is an environmental aspect?
An environmental aspect is a part of an organisation’s activities, products or services that interacts with the environment, such as effluent, emissions, water use or waste.
What is an environmental impact?
An environmental impact is the change to the environment caused by an aspect. It can be adverse, such as a polluted stream, or beneficial, such as oil recovered for recycling.
What is an example of an aspect and impact in a food factory?
Caustic effluent from CIP cleaning is an aspect. A pH shock that upsets treatment at the municipal sewage works is its impact. A breach of the trade effluent permit is a compliance problem, not an environmental impact.
Which clause of ISO 14001:2026 covers environmental aspects?
Clause 6.1.2. It asks you to determine aspects and impacts under normal, abnormal and potential emergency conditions, with a life cycle perspective, and to decide which are significant.
Do I need a life cycle assessment for ISO 14001?
No. ISO 14001:2026 asks for a life cycle perspective, which means considering the stages before and after your operations. Annex A says a detailed life cycle assessment is not required.
Do employees need to know the site’s aspects?
Yes, the ones linked to their own work. Clause 7.3 asks people working under your control to be aware of the significant aspects and impacts of their work.
Which ASC course teaches aspects and impacts?
Introduction to ISO 14001:2026 teaches your supervisors, operators and QA staff to see the aspects in their own work, link them to the controls and the law, and explain them to an auditor without a script.
R1 495 per learner. No VAT is charged, so the price shown is the price paid. Teams of five or more: contact ASC for a team rate.
- 3 modules and 21 lessons, about 6 hours in total
- Case sites: a ready meals plant, a citrus packhouse and a 14 store restaurant group, or your own site
- A quick game between modules: aspect or impact, clause match, which control is strongest
- A case study assessment at the end of each module, marked the moment you submit
- Pass mark 70 percent, with feedback that names the lesson to revisit
- ASC certificate of completion with a verification code an employer can check
- Is it for me? Yes if you supervise people who handle waste, chemicals or effluent, or you are new to environmental coordination.
- How long does it take? About 6 hours, self paced, on a phone or laptop.
- Will it work at my site? Yes. The aspects on the case sites are the ones found on most South African food and agricultural sites.
Building the register and scoring significance yourself? Take ISO 14001:2026 Understanding and Implementation. Certified to 2015 and checking the new 6.1.2 wording? Transition to ISO 14001:2026 covers it. Auditing aspects? See ISO 14001:2026 Internal Auditor.
ISO 14001 is copyright and is not reproduced here. ASC is not affiliated with ISO.
Sources
- ISO 14001:2026, Environmental management systems, ISO
- National Environmental Management: Waste Act 59 of 2008
- National Water Act 36 of 1998
- National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act 39 of 2004