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.