The forests are essential for healthy environment. Trees which are part of the

forest help to stabilize the forest soil, improve soil fertility, reduce the velocity of

wind, protect watershed and reduce the amount of carbon released into the

atmosphere. Many industries use trees as raw materials and in most cases impact

the environment, but there are great differences in the impact they make. There is

a need therefore to continually evaluate the operational activities of these

industries to ensure that the environment is protected. The use of environmental

management systems like ISO and EMAS standards has helped in the evaluation

of organizations and industries.

In this thesis, two sawmills Iretunde and Irepodun in Etsako-West local

government area Edo state Nigeria were evaluated with the aim to determine their

operational activities and how the environment is being affected by them. Subaims

were to determine the most significant environmental aspects of the sawmill

and their organizational structure. In actualizing the aim of this thesis, literature

review, site investigation as well as oral interview of the staff and management of

both sawmills were conducted. In the evaluation of the environmental aspects, the

detailed method of environmental impact evaluation by Ammenberg (2004) was

used were each environmental aspect that was weighted against nine identified

criteria.

The result obtained from the environmental aspect evaluation of both sawmills

shows that the use of raw materials and emissions to air are the most significant

environmental aspects. In conclusion, it was observed that the both sawmills are

well structured and carry out their operational activities effectively. Neither of

them has registered under any environmental management system but there is a

need for them to do so in order to help check their operational activities in order to

reduce their environmental impact.