ENVIRONMENTAL-PROTECTION AND QUALITY ASSURANCE

In the last years quality assurance has been introduced in many companies and has been developed into a management concept. In contrast to the environmental protection, quality assurance deals with an area not well regulated by legislation. In the, by tradition, more technical and legal oriented environment protection, the management concept is gaining in significance. This is caused by rising legal responsibility, but also by the allocation of resources to reach a company's environmental protection goal. Due to the multitude of organisational tasks in company's environmental protection and the liability in case of damages, a systematic procedure seems to be necessary. It is of advantage for a company to organize a unified management system, especially since many contacts and intersections between an environmental and quality management system are given. This paper presents common grounds in the systematics as well as the differences in substance of environmental and quality management systems.